


Unextinguished Embers

by tsuwundere



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, HAHAH insane lack of communication, Lack of Communication, M/M, Slow Burn, Trust Issues, as in they get together eventually, everyone has a full time job and like their own cars and shit, i guess, mutual trust issues, name a better duo, never know what to call it, not set in a killing game, oumasai, saiouma, shuichi has emotion processing issues and kokichi hates himself, spoilers for basically all the danganronpa lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 65,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsuwundere/pseuds/tsuwundere
Summary: Their books were burned, entire towns, cities, kingdoms were pillaged, schools were shut down, businesses were claimed, research was stolen, and so on until not a single thing was left of the magical world.Or so it was believed.The story of the world's single surviving sorcerer, Kokichi Ouma, and his union with the Future Foundation's apprentice detective, Shuichi Saihara, is a post-war fantasy tale that takes place 20 years after The Tragedy.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 198
Kudos: 381





	1. Enter Detective

Kirigiri’s Private Investigations.

A detective agency situated in the heart of the sprawling metropolis of New Snowcrest City, founded by the renowned, world famous detective Kyoko Kirigiri who had survived the annihilation of her high school during the global war against magic and helped rebuild the world from scratch alongside other talented survivors in an organisation known as the Future Foundation. Now married to fellow former classmate and national hero Makoto Naegi, she travels the world to solve the biggest top secret, government classified mysteries in allied countries, while the Future Foundation repurposed themselves as an international union of political consultants for contemporary issues ranging from energy, economics and humanitarian crises.

The story of her rise to great worldwide acclaim and the war itself was like a work of fiction, really. When stripped of all the embellished tales of ideological motives, it was really a war with the two opposing sides led by two teenage girls enrolled at the same institution – Hope’s Peak Academy. The main difference between these two girls – at least, what the world emphasised and fixated on most – was the practice of sorcery.

Junko Enoshima wasn’t exceptional in the way that one would assume in the world today – her proficiency in sorcery and witchcraft wasn’t something to bat an eyelash at. In the world before The Tragedy, ordinary people and sorcerers lived alongside each other in peace and harmony. They worked together from office settings to construction sites to kitchens, their unions were celebrated equally regardless of whether the bride and groom were matched in practicing ability, their children attended the same schools; they were neighbours, friends, doctors and patients, teachers and students and they co-existed in every sense of the phrase.

Rather, Junko was exceptional in her talent of analysis. Paired with her brief interest in fashion, she was able to predict trends in beauty and style which enabled her to quickly became an icon all over then-Snowcrest. Her strawberry blonde twin-tails and large, mascara-framed, contact-adorned eyes were featured on the cover of every magazine (if the editing companies wanted that issue to be successful, that is) and every cosmetics commercial known to man. Her fame and perceived talent in the fashion industry quickly gained the attention of Hope’s Peak Academy’s admissions team, and she was scouted as the Ultimate Fashionista alongside the Ultimate High School Detective who would become her classmate and eventually, her undoing.

Junko Enoshima’s talent made her bored. So inconceivably, incomprehensibly bored. Bored beyond belief. She was able to accurately foresee outcomes for every situation she was thrown into. She won every bet and every gamble. She could never experience the thrill of unpredictability. Every interest she developed was fleeting and she would become disinterested as quickly as she had become interested.

Soon after enrolling at Hope’s Peak Academy however, Junko would learn of something that she would never become bored of until the day she died.

As her classmates would file into class every morning, Junko would tremble with such an unfamiliar sense of anticipation and excitement. She wouldn’t return the cheerful morning greetings they directed towards her, and the number she received every day decreased until she was simply regarded with only an acknowledging glance. She opted for sitting at the back of her classrooms and by channeling her arcane energy to her eyes, she would observe the quivering and fragile forms of her dearest classmates’ life force around their bodies.

Aether as a source of magical power was abundant. Boringly abundant. It was quite literally just a “default setting” energy that filled otherwise unfilled space; a placeholder for something else.

Life force was something else. Life force was unique – unique as a source of arcane energy, and unique to the bearer. Leon’s life force burned bright and red-hot like a flame, Sayaka’s life force was a serene and undisturbed sea, Sakura’s life force was solid and sturdy like a rock; Kyoko’s life force was a still and mysterious morning mist, Makoto’s life force was a warm sunbeam refracted by gently flowing water, Celeste’s life force was not unlike the long shadows cast by streetlights at night and Aoi’s life force was the sweet scent of a gingerbread bakery on a frosty winter morning.

Junko never tired of observing the life force of people around her; not even the same fifteen classmates of hers. Their life force rose, fell, grew, shrunk, morphed and interacted in ways Junko would never grow sick of watching. Makoto’s life force would become warmer and pulse like his racing heart whenever he and Sayaka would share lunch breaks together. Sakura’s life force would soften in shape and bleed into Aoi’s whenever the two laughed. Toko’s and Byakuya’s would become one whenever the pair were in close proximity regardless of the outward show of contempt the latter would display for the former.

One day, Junko was consumed with the desire to toy with what she saw. She wanted to manipulate it, control it, destroy it, stretch it out and make something new from it, taste it, devour it, watch how it morphed if she were to torture it. She wanted to observe the beauty of its behaviour in the most awful of conditions.

And thus began The Tragedy of Hope’s Peak Academy.

As she fed on the withering life force of her dying schoolmates, she had learned that despairing life force was the easiest for her magical influence to control. It would seep through cracks and tears in the strong, reflective surface energy that held bearers in a protective bubble and possess the body from the inside.

Junko became greedy.

2,357 was the exact number of Hope’s Peak Academy’s Reserve Course students Junko had bent to her will. She used their mindless bodies against the remaining student body in the Main Course – save for a single class – and then fed off the thousands of dying and despairing souls of her former schoolmates. The world watched as a black and white bear of her magical creation consumed the students’ life energy, and their lifeless forms fell from their positions suspended in the air to the ground with sickening splattering sounds. It was a shower of bodies.

Despair spread like a disease, and her final acts as the leader of the movement among corrupted sorcerers dubbed Ultimate Despair were the fastest catalyst.

The remaining survivors of Hope’s Peak Academy’s student body – Junko’s fourteen beloved classmates – had been living within the academy peacefully for a year in the headmaster’s futile attempt to preserve “hope” in order to combat Junko’s spreading despair when the time was right.

The world could do nothing but watch as the Remnants of Hope were forced into killing each other, one by one, after Junko had wiped their memories with a dark spell and manipulated the missing information to create motives that would wittle the number down from fourteen to six.

Six was enough, though. Six beams of sunlight peeking out through thick, grey cloud cover was enough to restore faith in that summer would still follow even the harshest of winters. The six of them were the brightest daybreak full of the prettiest pinks and purples after the darkest dusk, the serenity after a storm, the shifting of rubble after an earthquake.

The Future Foundation, now equipped with six of the world’s most powerful weapons – the last remaining symbols of hope, dubbed the new world “Terranova”.

Despite the on-the-nose name, the Future Foundation facilitated worldwide repair and rebuilding in a way that it was as though the world was a phoenix rising from the ashes of its former self. The world they created was beautiful and peaceful, moreso than it had been before The Tragedy.

Though, it was all at the cost of one thing.

Sorcerers had no place in the Future Foundation’s new world.

Identified by their unique crimson irises, sorcerers were killed where they were found. Junko’s brainwashing in corrupted sorcerers was manipulated by some of the scientific talents at the Future Foundation, and they were used against their own kind in the fashion of the attack on the Hope’s Peak Academy’s Main Course student body by the Reserve Course student body. This way, not even the elusive family members of sorcerers hidden away in the sorcery-only communities of kingdoms such as Sageseed, Stormloft and Glowguard were safe.

Their slaughter was justified to the masses as a necessary evil. Sorcery was able to bring the world to the mercy of an otherwise harmless and feeble high school girl – it was not a practice that should’ve been allowed to continue. Their books were burned, entire towns, cities, kingdoms were pillaged, schools were shut down, businesses were claimed, research was stolen, and so on until not a single thing was left of the magical world.

Or so it was believed.

The story of Terranova’s single surviving sorcerer and his union with a student of the Future Foundation’s Kyoko Kirigiri herself takes place 20 years after The Tragedy.

* * *

Shuichi Saihara prides himself in being part of Kyoko Kirigiri’s legacy, serving as an apprentice at the detective agency that she left behind.

Kyoko visits once in a while, but Shuichi has never seen her himself. He figured you’d be more likely to run into her on an airplane with Ultimate-Lucky-Student-turned-Ultimate-Hope husband Makoto Naegi in tow, even considering the fact that a little over half of her flights are taken in a private jet.

Plain Jane Tsumugi Shirogane was left in charge, who Shuichi had judged as completely lackluster in comparison.

Regardless, Shuichi is reminded every day of Kyoko’s vision. The agency’s ethos written by her very own hand was printed and pinned onto every corkboard in every office. It was part of the contract Shuichi had signed when he’d started work there. It wasn’t as though his obsessive captivation with her needed all that help in remembering her cause though.

Every day, Shuichi honoured the privilege of getting to commit hours of his day working as close as he could possibly get to the hope that saved the world.

It was all this pride and admiration that had Shuichi straddling a branch in an oak tree in a local resident’s back yard, waggling a selfie stick with catnip attached to the end of it at a cat that was showing no intention of coming closer.

It was as though both the cat and the circumstances were taunting him.

“Get down here.”

Shuichi peered down to the owner of the exasperated voice, but quickly redirected his gaze upon registering the distance between himself and the ground.

Maki didn’t wait for him to follow her instructions as she unpinned her shawl and let it fall to the ground beside Shuichi’s own blazer. In several swift movements that Shuichi could barely keep up with, Maki accomplished in 30 seconds what Shuichi had been trying to do for 30 minutes.

She used the lowest branch of the tree as a lowering plank to the ground again, holding the feline in one hand and dragging Shuichi along by his ahoge with the other.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Maki said with her cheeks puffed out in annoyance as soon as the two of them left the residence. Shuichi’s attention shifted from swatting at the flyaways in his hair to Maki, who was fiddling with the pin on her shawl as she spoke.

“Tenko, Gonta and I had to try and track down a bunch of occult-obsessed middle schoolers at the request of a bunch of overbearing helicopter parents. With no leads.” Maki kicked a pebble along the road as the two of them walked.

“We’re not really built for figuring out where someone might go. That’s more your thing. So I came to get you.”

Shuichi let out a deep sigh. It was overwhelmingly evident that New Snowcrest City hadn’t had the highest of crime rates since the end of the war, leaving Shuichi and the other talents he’d been hired alongside resorting to extending their services to chasing missing pets, stalking unfaithful partners, finding absent fathers, searching for long lost siblings and as Maki was describing, glorified babysitting.

Shuichi comforted himself with the idea that the formidable presence of Kirigiri’s Private Investigations and its incredible talents personally handpicked by shining beacon of hope Kyoko Kirigiri herself was the sole reason why there was little work for them to actually even do.

The remainder of the walk back to the agency was done in silence, with the end of it punctuated with the sound of Himiko’s high-pitched voice drifting from the break room as Shuichi made a beeline for the coffee machine.

“I’m telling you!” she squawked in her nasally voice, seeming to flail her arms around judging by what Shuichi could tell from his peripheral vision.

“Gonta not sure about that…”

Introducing Himiko Yumeno, a 3 PM to 6 PM middle school intern at Kirigiri’s Private Investigations. The fact that someone as gullible as Gonta was doubting her in the conversation Shuichi was greeted with upon his return said more than anyone could tell you.

The intern had a fascination for fantasy stories, Shuichi figured. There was little else to suggest why the girl would insist she were a young mage when she was clearly the bearer of a pair of striking honey-gold eyes. Shuichi wondered how far the colour of her irises laid from the crimson of genuine sorcerers on the colour wheel.

He then wondered if she knew that if her claims of innate magical abilities hadn’t been disproven in a national security intelligence investigation that she wasn’t aware of, her parents would no longer have a daughter, class 1B of the local middle school would no longer have a 16th student and Kirigiri Private Investigations wouldn’t have an intern.

“Shuichi is probably smart enough to hear me out.” _Oh man._

“What is it you want to say, Himiko?”

“The kids you’re investigating! We’re all in a wizardry club together at school.” Shuichi pictured a Harry Potter fan club. “We’re still healing from the trauma of the war so you should just quit looking for them!” She finished, picked up the documents at the photocopier that she was probably sent to fetch by the likes of Kirumi or Ryoma, turned on heel and disappeared behind the admin office doors.

That suggestion was, of course, out of the question. “How unhelpful.” Maki had commented as she retrieved a single document from a filing cabinet by the reception that Kaede was minding. “If she was going to talk about people involved in the case, I would’ve liked it if she let some useful details slip at least.”

“Maybe what she said wasn’t completely useless.” Shuichi said thoughtfully, black coffee in hand. “If all the missing children have a common interest in wizardry, maybe she’s given us a lead?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Maki said in her Maki-typical tone, tucking a few strands of straying hair behind her ear. “A group of middle schoolers are a group of middle schoolers. They could be anywhere.”

“Ah, yeah I suppose you’re right…” Shuichi opted to avert his gaze to the floorboards which didn’t particularly look like they tolerated his presence any more than Maki did. “A-anyway Maki, didn’t you say you wanted me to investigate instead? I can try, even if there aren’t any leads…”

“I mean, you can start where you think you have a lead,” Maki glanced thoughtfully to the side before handing the sheet of paper she had been holding to Shuichi. “I did ask for you to look into it in your own way regardless of whether I get it or not, after all.”

Shuichi acknowledged that this was Maki’s way of encouraging him, and gave the document a quick once-over. There were five pairs of eyes staring back at him printed on the sheet with handwritten notes – Kaede’s handwriting, is what a part of Shuichi’s brain decided to fixate on – detailing the identities of the five students the clients had asked the agency to look into the whereabouts of. Their names were listed alongside their heights, weights and other general details about their appearances, as well as a separate photograph of what the school’s uniform looked like ( _as if the agency wasn’t already familiar with the attire Himiko wore to her placement every afternoon_ , were Shuichi’s unvoiced thoughts).

Before he’d left, Shuichi had hazarded a few questions in Himiko’s direction to probe more of a lead from her, but the middle schooler had seen right through him. She really was beginning to show the promise of a fine detective, but it did mean that Shuichi was on his own, without any clues, on the doorstep of Kyoko Kirigiri’s world famous detective agency, beginning the single most mundane investigation he’s pretty sure any of them had ever been tasked with into a group of middle schoolers’ after school activities.

It was about to turn four o’clock – Shuichi could tell by how he was blinded by the setting sun reflecting off the windows of the office complex opposite the agency as soon as he stepped out the door into the bitingly cold February air again. According to the client details, the teenagers were usually at home by half past three but had recently been staying out until the dark winter hours of six or seven as of late, drawing concern from more than one parent.

Of course, the logical step from there is to hire a private investigator to confirm their whereabouts instead of trying to have a conversation with the kids.

It didn’t take Shuichi long to acknowledge just how correct Maki had been about not having a lead. He’d meandered around the upper floors of the library closest to the school, knowing it was a popular place for middle schoolers to study or just sit with their friends when they didn’t want to go home so soon (a sentiment Shuichi realised he could no longer relate to), expecting to eventually find the group of five sharing a fantasy or magical girl manga in a corner somewhere. When that was fruitless, he’d peered through the closest convenience shop window (and made a purchase when the owner glanced at him to acknowledge his presence so as to not look suspicious) and even investigated the inside of every fast food store up and down the nearby roads.

No dice, of course. At four going onto five o’clock, students dismissed from school at three could’ve been anywhere. Frustrated at the recognition of this, Shuichi kicked an empty can on the road and was immediately overcome with remorse for the can and the environment.

That was when he felt a call come through in his breast pocket. He answered without caring to check the name.

It was Kaede – presumably calling from her seat behind the reception desk at the agency, judging by how Shuichi could hear Kirumi bid her farewell seconds into the call. She had asked Shuichi how his investigation was going, which was a question he regarded with a noise that communicated “not particularly well” for him. She let out that melodious laughter of hers, before letting him know that she had called up the parents a moment ago to make sure they were still wandering outside, in case he was wondering if he was just wasting his time.

He wasn’t wondering. He was sure of it.

“Oh and another thing…” she added quickly before it was Shuichi’s turn to say his goodbyes. Her voice turned much softer, in a way that seemed as though she was trying to avoid attracting any attention.

“Kirumi and I were showing Himiko some of the ropes when it comes to office administration and whatnot right – just filing things and stuff.” Had Kaede not had such a pleasant tone to listen to, Shuichi would’ve zoned out of the conversation by now.

“I said it’d be no problem for her since she’s a witch, so she could probably use her magic to organise files rather than her eyes and hands. And then get this – she seemed to get a little upset and said something about… mana stores?”

“Mana stores…” Shuichi repeated after her, testing the phrase on his tongue.

“Yeah! Strange, right? She said, hers were all depleted since she’s working here when she should be replenishing them from the source in the woods at sundown, like all the other mages she knows does. Now,” Shuichi could hear some shuffling of papers and a door creak on the other end of the line, and Kaede’s voice grew quieter again. “I don’t know exactly what that means but it sounded like it could be a clue for you, especially considering how she slapped her hands over her mouth immediately afterwards. So, um… Yeah. Good luck out there!” Kaede’s voice returned to it’s normal volume before he heard the end call tone.

Shuichi felt an exasperated exhale escape his lips. Forests, witches and mana. That’s so cliché! But he _was_ dealing with middle schoolers, he supposed. He changed course with more purposeful footsteps than he’d had for the last half an hour.

Shuichi never really stopped to think about what precautions one would take into a dense forest at five o’clock in the afternoon during a winter sunset. He’d settled for equipping himself with a medium-sized branch that he’d torn from a tree near the entrance that it had been hanging onto for dear life by its very last fibres.

It wasn’t a particularly vast or expansive forest, Shuichi acknowledged as he took his first steps in and noticed the tree cover wasn’t as thick as it had looked from the outside. He figured that if he came back the same time tomorrow with Maki, Gonta and Tenko, the three of them could probably do a once-over in a matter of minutes, scare the kids into not coming back and call it case closed.

But for now, he was just looking for clues to suggest that the kids were visiting this place after all. Maki would take his intestines as equivalent exchange for wasting her time if he dragged her out here for no reason.

Aforementioned clues made themselves apparent minutes into his search. Small footprints everywhere – walked over several times until a clear path was shaped from them, not entirely in a clean, neat line and some visibly older than others, all suggesting regular visits.

The footprints ended in a clearing. Shuichi had quite the trouble following the path through the ever-thickening cover of bushes and nettles even with the weaponised branch in hand, but he eventually made it through to the point where the vegetation formed a thick circle around a mostly bare clearing, with the exception of a log lying ahead of a firepit that evidently hadn’t been used in a while.

Oh, and the massive statue fountain right in the centre of the clearing.

Well, it certainly _looked_ magical. Shuichi figured he couldn’t blame the kids for wandering out here anymore – the sculpture featured a woman in robes that Shuichi recognised as those pictured in history books and replicated in museums and labelled as sorcerers’ robes.

She was propped up onto a pedestal, surrounded by a dish-shaped base which carried a pool of water around her. There was some kind of mechanism Shuichi wasn’t sure he could explain feeding water up the statue and into her gathered palms before it spilled between her fingers and back into the pool. The sound of gently rushing water put him at ease immediately.

It was beautiful.

The sparkling of the spots of dappled sunlight through the cover of trees overhead as the water flowed was almost hypnotic, and Shuichi began to wonder how the statue stayed so clean and the water stayed so clear when he was sure there was no way the forest was being maintained in any way.

Just as he was about to reach out and touch the surface of the water, he felt the familiar sensation of a call coming through.

It was Kaede again. This time it was to let him know that the parents called in to say the kids were at home again for the day, and that Maki and the others were waiting for Shuichi to return to the agency and report on his findings for the day before they left.

Well, that was that he supposed. He gave the sculpture one last impressed glance as he slid his phone back into his breast pocket, and turned to leave the way he came.

He didn’t get very far before trailing to a stop. As the case usually was with February evenings, dusk seemed to follow rapidly after the pale light of a winter sunset faded.

Shuichi had never imagined just how ominous this familiar phenomenon would feel if he were to be alone in the middle of unfamiliar woodlands.

He gripped the branch he’d been holding the entire time tighter in both hands as a cold breeze blew, making Shuichi quiver like the rustling leaves he was surrounded by. The wind continued to whistle, creak and groan through the trees as Shuichi’s senses fixated on the sensation of being watched that had suddenly crept up on him.

He turned around slowly, as if any swift movement would prompt the bearer of the eyes on him to attack him. The feeling got stronger once he did – overbearingly so.

His breathing became panicked when he was pulled out of his third survey of the full circumference of the clearing for any hostility by the sound of a snapping twig from somewhere – but _where_?

He could no longer control the frenzy of his vision as his eyes desperately darted back and forth between different parts of the assemblage of vegetation around him, searching for any sign of the presence that he could so painfully, frighteningly and nauseatingly _feel_.

A part of Shuichi was saying it was probably nothing – just his imagination. The ambience of a forest at the beginning of nightfall was just like that. Convinced by that part of his scattered mind, he willed his shaking legs to start again in the direction he’d come from, but he could only manage to stumble forward one or two steps before coming to another stop.

His legs had never felt so _weak_ before – what ever happened to fight or flight? Shuichi didn’t feel ready for _either_.

His knees finally gave way and he tumbled backwards when a figure appeared before him after a swishing of leaves from someplace and for a moment, Shuichi couldn’t _move_.

The image he was faced with burnt itself onto Shuichi’s retinas with such intensity that he could still see it as he squeezed his eyes shut and repositioned himself with his hands on the ground before him and his head bowed, prepared to beg for his life.

Unless his eyes were deceiving him, which was wishful thinking that every part of Shuichi had already given up on engaging in, he had seen a pair of deep scarlet eyes on a pale face framed with purple hair.

A sorcerer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update: edited some typos out hahadjskhg thank you for the comments and kudos already and i'm glad you guys are enjoying it so far! i'm going to reply to everyone once i have more of an update to offer :)
> 
> took 6 days to rewrite an initial 2.3k into a 4.5k redraft and i'm super happy with it. this is my first big project since a three-year long writers' block and i'm really happy to be writing again. the plot for this was thought of back in 2015 or '16, and i'd begun writing it as an original piece of work that never really took off, so i repurposed the plot for a saiouma fic for my comeback into writing again, as you do.
> 
> i think danganronpa is perfect for a fantasy au, and i'm really excited to be writing one. i hope it's enjoyable.
> 
> please leave kudos, comments and whatnot - i need all the drive i can get. thank you so much for reading! <3


	2. Enter Mage

Snowcrest Woods were quiet, considering they were a solid two and a half miles or so from the closest main roads where one would associate with the sound of passing traffic, chattering pedestrians and the general sound of life.

That being said, the desperate hyperawareness of Shuichi’s senses as he remained bowed before the bearer of a pair of red eyes in front of him made it seem as though the usual pin-drop silent forest couldn’t be any _louder_. The sound of gently flowing water behind him evolved into the kind of sound you would hear trying to swim up a waterfall before you get crushed at the foot of it by a current carried by the heaviest gravity; the rustling of leaves in the breeze became a struggle against a storm and most notably, the sound of Shuichi’s own pulse was resonating throughout his skull like a siren.

“Oh? Someone’s begging _me_ for _their_ life? That’s a change of pace. I could get used to this.”

Shuichi didn’t dare move a muscle when he heard the shuffling of soil and leaves in front of him. Though, judging by how he had unconsciously begun holding his breath at some point, he wasn’t sure if he was capable of moving even if he wanted to.

Which is why the next sequence of events were some of the most distressing, bewildering and disconcerting in his life.

Against his will, he felt himself straighten up and rise from his position, bringing him face-to-face with the sorcerer who had squatted down to Shuichi’s sitting height.

Shuichi tasted bile. He knew he could probably keep his trembling body still if he could just tear his gaze from the image in front of him and redirect it somewhere off the side, but his vision couldn’t help but fixate on the glowing scarlet of the sorcerer’s irises.

The nausea somehow got worse when Shuichi’s eyes eventually did trail down to the mage’s hands where Shuichi’s life force was made visible to him as pale blue threads wrapped around each of the mage’s fingers like the strings between a puppet and a puppeteer.

“…You should probably relax. Ah, I think I’m supposed to say… You _will_ relax.” Again, Shuichi felt the tension in his body ebbing away, though he was certain his mind had never been in _more_ turmoil in his life.

His vision went blurry and Shuichi couldn’t process why until he felt the weight and warmth of large, hot tears down his face, cooling as they reached his chin. His body was behaving as docile and obedient as a dog after belly rubs in the sorcerer’s hands, as if his own will meant nothing. While it wasn’t unapparent to him before, Shuichi was now definitely aware of just how frightening the power of mages were. It was something he had never imagined he would experience in his life.

Something he thought the Future Foundation had guaranteed nobody would ever have to experience in their lives.

Shuichi suddenly felt the weight of entire worlds on him as he continued to process the depth of what exactly he was looking at that was staring back at him with those mythical crimson orbs. The warmth of the colour contrasting against the cool tones of the warlock’s pale skin and purple hair seemed so, so hideously unnatural.

“Wowie, you have such pretty life force.”

Shuichi felt his heart drop as the sorcerer waggled his fingers, pulling at Shuichi’s muscles as he did so.

He had paid just enough attention in history lessons during his adolescent academic career to know exactly what that meant. Junko Enoshima was the first mage to use life force as a consumable energy source for her magic and sustenance, and her obsession with it was what drove her to begin the movement that would bring the world to its knees.

This was it. Shuichi was going to die at the hands of this sorcerer and his essence was going to be eaten, digested and excreted in the middle of this forest.

He couldn’t stop his tears.

“If I had to describe it…” The stranger arranged himself into a cross-legged sitting position. “You kind of feel like an angel. Your colours are white and pale blue – like the sky, almost, but there’s something else… Softness and warmth that makes you think of a pair of wings, rather than something cold like stratospheric air. So, what do you say? Shall I turn you into an angel?” The wizard prodded at Shuichi’s chest where his heart was, and Shuichi forced his petrified body into a shake of the head.

“Please don’t…” Shuichi managed to hesitantly beg, which seemed to placate the sorcerer.

“Oh! He speaks!” The apparent happiness the warlock exuded seemed so genuine and… innocent. Had Shuichi been in literally any other situation, he would have entertained the thought that it was the kind of reaction a lonely child would have when given some attention.

“Will he speak his name?” The warlock tilted his head to the side and his gaze turned expectant.

“Shuichi Saihara…”  
  


“Shuichi Saihara.” He repeated, testing the new name on his tongue. “A pretty name for a pretty face with pretty life force.” Shuichi swallowed. “What are you doing here, Shuichi Saihara? Your life force tells me you would most likely be… a journalist? Or maybe an intelligence agent.”

“Detective…”

“Ooh, a detective. Close enough. All three of those are nosy bastards.” The mage looked bored and began to play with Shuichi’s life force around his fingers again – a gesture that made Shuichi unspeakably nervous. “Well, Detective Saihara? What do you know about this place?”

“Nothing… I was searching for missing children.”

“Aww. I was going to kill them and feast on their life force, but I suppose I can’t now that you’ve seen my face.”

There was a pause. Of course there was – there was nothing Shuichi could have possibly said to that.

“That was a lie. I never even considered it.” The sorcerer’s expression turned from serious to bored again, and it were almost as if he were watching a bad theatre performance and Shuichi was the worst actor he’d ever seen.

“But they do make it an inconvenience for me to use this place every afternoon when the clock strikes four, so I suppose I could let you live if you would catch them on their way in so I don’t have to see them – or you – ever again.” The sorcerer looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m showing you mercy. Do you understand? If I’m here tomorrow and I am still being inconvenienced by people in my way, I won’t hesitate to kill them this time. Okay?”

Shuichi nodded obediently.

“Good. Well then…” The sorcerer unfolding himself from his sitting position and rising from it was the last thing Shuichi saw before his vision went black and he was seemingly warped to the entrance of the forest.

He promptly proceeded to throw up the contents of his stomach into the soil at the base of the closest tree before carrying his trembling form back to the agency with every bit of remaining energy he had.

* * *

Shuichi wasn’t permitted to leave the agency that night.

He had been greeted with the sight of Rantaro and Kaito close to the door – the two of them visibly ready to leave for the day. Judging by the irritation initially written all over their faces, they must have been waiting all this time for him to return before they left but it wasn’t something Shuichi had much time to think about since said expressions morphed into ones of horror and concern pretty rapidly once they had a chance to assess Shuichi’s state.

Kaito had gone to call for Maki somewhere in the back of the offices while Rantaro and a fretful Kaede that had padded over from her spot behind the reception counter had Shuichi take a seat in one of the more comfortable consultation rooms.

Shuichi’s investigative report ended up sounding more like a victim statement as he recounted the last few hours of his day wrapped in a blanket and gripping crumpled tissue that Rantaro had offered him. Kaede and Tsumugi were on their second hour of overtime by the time he had finished making his statement thanks to the number of times he had to take a break – though judging by the anxiety for his well-being written all over each of his co-workers’ faces (save for Kirumi, Gonta and a few others who had presumably already left, and Miu who was still there but didn’t care “as long as his dick’s working”) as they willingly stayed behind and listened from the door, nobody was counting hours or money owed for them.

Shuichi answered as much as he could but despite being a detective and having refined his observation skills as part of the job, he realised there weren’t a lot of details he could recall about the part of the investigation interrupted by the sorcerer no matter how long he thought about it. He had frozen up when Tsumugi asked the simple questions regarding what the sorcerer was wearing, and what his height and build were like. Kaede had looked up from her assistant duties of logging the interview onto a computer when no answer came.

He’d just not been paying attention – he was far too stunned by the sight of an actual pair of red eyes and of course that nauseating image of Shuichi’s life force around his fingers to take note of anything else. In the end, the only images Shuichi could manage to reproduce from his distressed memory was that of the dark, plum coloured hair that fell around a small pale face and the strikingly horrible picture of his unnaturally hued irises.

Maki and Kaito were the pair that volunteered to stay behind overnight to keep Shuichi company after Tsumugi had declared that she had no more questions at eight o’clock. It was a gesture that Shuichi massively appreciated, since he considered it safe to say that the duo were some of his closest friends. His remaining co-workers bid him farewell one by one, some of them fussing over his ill-state on their way out (namely Kaede and Rantaro, who both threatened to sit on him for a number of hours if they caught him pushing himself).

It wasn’t that he had much of a choice anyway – he passed out from exhaustion once the futons Tsumugi kept in a closet for use when needed were laid out.

The agency had a fairly spacious and exceedingly comfortable studio apartment on the second floor, which Kyoko had provided for Tsumugi to live in as the manager of her agency. Since Tsumugi had moved out to live with her fiance though, the apartment now served as a space for overnight stays whenever investigations required it, or parties and such for events like birthdays.

It would be the first time it was to be used as a nursing space for a traumatised detective.

Shuichi proceeded to lapse in and out of sleep for the duration of the night. Maki wasn’t sleeping – Shuichi could tell from what he saw of her between periods of rest. She had been alternating between browsing the internet on her PC and eating snack bars (most likely from the office vending machine) judging by what Shuichi had seen every time he woke up. He’d also seen her read Kaede’s statement notes again and shyly pull Kaito’s futon duvet over him again when he wriggled out in his contrastingly deep slumber – the latter of which was definitely a sight that Maki would kill him for witnessing if she knew.

Although he was concerned about her lack of sleep, the fact that Maki was up and watching over the two of them was probably the only reason why Shuichi felt just comfortable enough to fall asleep again every time he woke up.

He made a mental note to find some way to thank her at some point later, when he was feeling better.

When working hours rolled by, Shuichi was instructed by Maki to stay put and let everyone else handle work until that afternoon.

“I’ve prepared an ambush of sorts. I’ve decided I want you to come with us so we don’t waste time looking, so you should prepare yourself for that.” She had said over a tray of lunch she brought to him in the middle of the day.

“Us…?”

“I’ve enlisted the help of Tenko and Gonta.”

Tenko, Maki and Gonta were dubbed the Brute Force Trio by Tsumugi, and the three of them had a long-time reputation that Shuichi had learnt about fairly quickly upon being recruited by the agency. Though Kaede and Rantaro would tell Shuichi all sorts of stories about the three of them in the break room, this would be the first time he’s personally seeing them in action together.

Despite the circumstances, he was sort of excited. They were going to apprehend a sorcerer – finally, this was the sort of work he had expected and looked forward to when he was employed by a company with such close ties with the Future Foundation and the nation’s symbols of hope and peace.

En route to Snowcrest Forests at three o’clock sharp in a SWAT team van sent to the agency after Kyoko had received word of Tsumugi’s report, the adrenaline in his veins quickly turned into a colony of butterflies migrating to his stomach.

The first half of the ambush plan couldn’t have gone any more smoothly. After Kaito and the SWAT team had secured the middle schoolers and taken them into custody to have safety checks done later, Maki was given the signal to lead the smaller team of detectives in to apprehend the sorcerer while the others continued to supervise the entrance.

Equipped with two blades that were barely legal for Maki to wield (being able to hone any combat skills was a special perk of being employed by a company owned by the Future Foundation – a perk that Shuichi figured was the main appeal of working there to Maki), she led the three of them to the clearing with Shuichi’s guidance, slashing away any foliage in her way.

The feeling of being watched was there right away, as Shuichi and the three detectives reached the clearing.

Shuichi shuddered. There was something different about it this time… Was this what someone’s bloodlust for you felt like?

_“If I’m here tomorrow and I am still being inconvenienced by people in my way, I won’t hesitate to kill them this time.”_

_Show yourself, then…_ The confidence Shuichi felt at that moment was uncharacteristic, but there was no doubt in his mind. Even with sorcery on his side, Shuichi was sure that he would be no match for Maki on her own, let alone all three of them.

The mage continued to hide, though. He was pretty good at it – even from four pairs of eyes. Maki had every now and then called out threats to the boy that Shuichi was _certain_ was listening – but his coworkers were losing faith by the minute. No clues to his whereabouts would make themselves known regardless of how much Maki provoked him (except of course, the penetrating gaze on Shuichi that only he could feel), not even as three o’clock turned to four and four turned to five.

Tenko had made herself comfortable on the edge of the statue fountain’s base at some point, muttering to Kaito through a handheld transceiver about how it’s so typical of degenerate males like him and Shuichi to waste her time like this.

“Maybe you were pranked.” Tenko finally said to Shuichi, an air of resignation around her as the wind began to carry the scent of evening into the forest. “Or maybe you have some kind of phobia of forests and it made you see stuff.”

“It would explain why he’s been trembling this entire time.” Maki commented, emerging from the bushes she had been searching the perimeter of one last time. “The rest of us seriously can’t feel anything. It’s not impossible that Shuichi made some kind of mistake.”

Was that it…? Just a mistake?

“I would clown on him but I feel sorry for him if that is the case. He looked awful yesterday.” _Thanks, Tenko._

“It’s also likely that the mage fled after his encounter with Shuichi. If he was in hiding, there’s no way he would stay in this place after being seen by a detective. Not even if this statue thing is important for mana or whatever, there’s probably a lot of this kind of stuff near old former sorcerer settlements.” Maki swiped one of her daggers through the stream of water as she made that last point.

“Either way, we should call it a day. It’s getting late. Good work everyone, regardless.”

Convinced by Tenko that Shuichi did indeed have a phobia of forests, Gonta insisted on carrying him out of the forest. He put up feeble resistance before humiliatingly being held bridal style in Gonta’s arms – though it was thanks to that, Shuichi was able to see a small, fast silhouette disappear somewhere among the vegetation in the clearing over Gonta’s shoulder as he carried him away.

* * *

Shuichi found himself at the entrance of Snowcrest Forests for the third time in the last 24 hours later that evening.

He hadn’t even been in Snowcrest Forests three times in his entire life prior to the past 24 hours. He wasn’t sure what had come over him – he just knew he wanted that mage apprehended.

The detectives had been dismissed from work soon after returning to the agency. They had already been a little while into overtime but more importantly, Tsumugi and the intelligence agents sent over by the Future Foundation alongside the SWAT team had a lot to discuss, so all staff were sent away promptly after usual working hours.

Shuichi’s one-man search party for the sorcerer began then.

Regardless of the pure terror he felt coursing through his veins – or perhaps, _because_ of it – when he felt the sorcerer’s eyes on him earlier that day, he knew he couldn’t leave it a mystery. Perhaps it was the detective in him speaking, or maybe he was just an idiot – but either way, he realised it didn’t matter.

That is because, while he had no actual intention of dying, he was ready to use his life to lure out the mage if it meant that he might slip up and leave behind evidence that could be used to find him and bring the whole case to a proper close.

That’s the kind of thing a detective working with the Future Foundation would probably do… To keep the world safe.

His trek to the centre didn’t take as long as it had the first time, thanks to Maki slashing her way to the clearing earlier that day.

Something was notably… absent when he got there though.

Shuichi couldn’t feel the eyes on him anymore.

The vegetation just seemed to get denser and denser with every visit, especially now with the help of dusk. He’d given up on squinting for any sign of the sorcerer fairly quickly because he could tell he just _wasn’t there_ – he couldn’t feel the weight of his sinister presence, the foreboding, murderous aura from earlier, nothing.

He kicked the base of the statue fountain in frustration, and flinched back when he thought it repositioned itself for a moment. He couldn’t really tell in the darkness but the thought alone was enough to confirm it – it probably _was_ all just his head. The feeling of being watched earlier that day, the thing he saw over Gonta’s shoulder, everything.

Shuichi blinked again and thought he saw the statue’s expression shift _again_. Was he really losing it? Did he actually fall for some kind of middle schooler’s prank without realising? Was he just imagining this statue looking different? He blinked again, another shift. I mean, Shuichi knew that he was kind of unstable, having grown up in his circumstances with such little to live for, making him fixate so much on his detective work and Kyoko and “hope” but he didn’t think–

…More importantly, it was just like Maki said. There’s no way they could secure a sorcerer that had stayed elusive for at least 20 years overnight. It was dark, cold and Shuichi had just wasted his time with his arrogant independent investigation.

He had his statement written up and sent off to seniors in the organisation. He really should just let them look into it on his behalf – they had a lot more intel than he would have as a young detective at the start of his career and they would actually know what they’re doing. He’d already done all that he was good for, the rest was up to them.

Just as he turned to leave, he heard the thumping of desperate footsteps approach him from someplace – something he’d been given no chance to process before he was sent to the ground in a tackle.

Being unable to process things was something Shuichi learnt he had better get used to around this point in time.

The statue had certainly moved. That much Shuichi could say for sure when he opened his eyes and gathered himself on the ground. The statue had moved, and the water that had been flowing through the figure’s hands had solidified into an ice lance that was now piercing a familiar form’s trembling thigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was originally about double the length of this in terms of events, but the word count kept getting bigger in number as i was redrafting it so i decided to split it in two. means an earlier update too! ^^
> 
> is everyone familiar with weeping angels from doctor who? they move when nobody's looking, even in the time it takes for you to blink. those things scared the stuffing out of me as a kid. the statue doesn't work quite the same but we'll get onto that eventually. if you think you can place any other references or inspirations for this fic, i'd love to hear what you think!


	3. Babysitting the Inhabitants of the Forest, Part 2

“Wh… What the _hell_ am I looking at?!”

Shuichi had been speechless for what felt like an eternity until the sheer bewilderment within him voiced itself with a stutter.

“That’s what I’d like to know…” the smaller boy hoarsely mumbled in between his heavy breathing. “Didn’t I say I didn’t want to see anyone here again? So what the hell am _I_ looking at?” The sorcerer looked up at Shuichi then, with such outrage in his eyes that it made Shuichi flinch.

Rather than the fear for his life that Shuichi had felt in the presence of the small mage up until that point, he felt a different, somewhat foreign kind of fear. The rare kind of heavy, dense horror that settles in Shuichi’s very core every time he realises that something doesn’t _add up_ in a mystery he’s trying to solve. The kind of unsettling fear that he would experience when he realises his logic didn’t make sense, or he’d gotten something gravely wrong.

It was arguably a more frightening type of fear compared with that of losing his life. It was a seed that would plant itself in the pit of his stomach before sprouting as vines of poison ivy that would seize his lungs – far more terrifying than the simple warning bells of a fight-or-flight situation.

Shuichi had only blinked and the statue had returned to the position he had first saw it in. He took mental note of the horrifying image of the mage’s blood running through the fountain before the water returned clear in the next cycle, likely with some kind of magic purifying mechanism.

The mage had let out a small whimper at that moment, presumably from the removal of the lance as it regained its original liquid form in the fountain having left a gaping wound on the side of the boy’s thigh where he’d been struck down.

It was at that point that Shuichi registered the fact that he’d had his life saved by the very same sorcerer that he’d been hunting.

Shuichi sat there for a moment, stunned. In the half-light and with any threat the mage posed neutralised for the minute, Shuichi was able to finally pay attention to the details that he hadn’t been able to give Tsumugi in his statement as he continued to assess the situation he was in. He wore what looked like some kind of unorthodox two-piece suit – not completely unlike something Shuichi might have seen before in a history book – which was entirely white save for where blood had stained the cotton an intense shade of red that would’ve been hard to look at had Shuichi not been a detective. He wore a thick black wool poncho over the top piece, and had a checkered monochrome scarf tied around his neck. His small, frail build shook with every heavy and, likely, painful breath he took.

“Man, I’m done for. I’m seriously done for.” The boy twisted the upper half of his body in an attempt to roll onto his back, but was evidently in too much agony to move the rest of his body. “I hope nobody up there expected me to last longer than this. Finally… It was getting kind of lonely.” The sorcerer’s eyes were obscured from Shuichi’s vision by a curtain of hair and the shadows of dusk, but he could hear tears in the warlock’s quivering voice.

“Can… Can you stand?” Shuichi instinctively moved to support the mage onto his feet, but stopped when the latter recoiled from his touch and looked at Shuichi as if he were stupid.

“What are you doing? You should run before I pass out and become worm food, or else you might have to moonwalk out of here without blinking… I’ll keep an eye on this thing while I still can…”

“H-huh? I can’t leave you here like this.”

“Why not? You wanted to kill me, right…? That’s why you were here earlier… So I could be executed by those Future Foundation bastards…” The sorcerer paused, gasping in pain as he moved to face Shuichi. “I’d rather die here, like this… On my own terms…”

“I don’t get it. _You_ threatened _me_ first – why did you protect me? Didn’t you say you were going to kill me if you saw me again?”

At this point, Shuichi was exasperated above all else. The mage’s behaviour just wasn’t making _sense_ and maybe Shuichi was being disingenuous or hypocritical but he couldn’t just leave someone to bleed out and _die_ in front of him. He was aware of the divine irony of the fact that he had been ready to sell the warlock’s life to the Future Foundation in exchange for glory and validation, but wasn’t willing to leave him to die in these circumstances – but that would be something for him to try to justify to himself later.

He just knew he couldn’t have the mystery end like this.

The warlock’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment before he tried to refocus on Shuichi and his question. The moonlight struck the boy’s face at just the right angle for his eyes, becoming increasingly exhausted by the second, to sparkle with some kind of tired sincerity Shuichi couldn’t quite place.

It was almost… surrender that reflected off those legendary crimson irises of his. It was as though he’d already signed Death’s paperwork, resigned to fate and just… given up.

Shuichi’s heart sank at the sight of it.

“That was a lie, obviously… I've been hiding here for ages… I didn’t want to kill anyone, or bring attention to this place or myself… I wanted to live quietly until I could die peacefully. This is alright, though – not the worst way I could’ve gone so I’m satisfied. Would’ve hated to die to the Future Foundation…” His voice grew quieter with every sentence, and his laboured breathing began to relax.

“Wait, before you pass out.” Shuichi gripped the boy’s arms, eliciting a hiss from him when he jerked away with enough force to disturb his injury.

“Your wound is in a non-vital place… You could live. Could you teleport both of us to the entrance like you did with me yesterday?”

The warlock found energy within him to snort at the request. “Don’t wanna.” He said simply.

Shuichi felt his jaw clench. “Are you sure you want to die having protected someone that works with the Future Foundation?”

The mage’s eyes flicked up to Shuichi at that, meeting his unfalteringly determined gaze. “Well, even if I wanted to… Aether spells are energy intensive…”

Shuichi swallowed. “Is there an alternative?”

“Life… force…” Shuichi shook the boy out of the unconsciousness clawing at him again.

“How much?”

“About 2 years off a human lifespan to get out of the guardian’s attack radius…”

“Use mine.” Desperation masked all of the unadultered fear in Shuichi’s voice right then, but it seemed as though the mage didn’t need to be told twice.

Shuichi was momentarily dazzled by the light given off by the spell, but after finding himself at the entrance of Snowcrest Forests once again with the sorcerer’s limp body a few feet away from him, he was able to gather himself quickly enough to ask for the warlock’s name before he succumbed to unconsciousness.

_Kokichi Ouma_ was the answer he had received.

* * *

As far as upper body strength went, Shuichi had next to none. Having been forced to make New Years’ Resolutions around this time last month as part of an office activity at the agency, he’d agreed to join Maki and Kaito at the local gym every other afternoon in order to get in shape this year. Just like many others in the New Year though, he fell out of the habit fairly quickly over the course of January – a process that had sped up considerably when it was apparent that the two of them shared a romantic interest in each other.

To put it crudely, Shuichi didn’t want to be a third wheel, so it looked like Shuichi was retaining his noodle arms this year too.

Despite that, Shuichi was able to carry the unconscious warlock on his back with ease. He had taken the long way home too – a quieter route, to avoid concerned looks in the busier city roads from the likes of couples on dinner dates and workers on their way home.

Shuichi briefly wondered how old the mage even was – with his small stature and light weight, he may very well have been a teenager. Considering The Tragedy was declared to be over two decades ago when the last few sorcerers were hunted and killed, Shuichi had assumed the mage was a single survivor and therefore at least 20 years of age – but with the boy’s remarkably tiny frame on his back now, Shuichi wasn’t so sure if that assumption held anymore. Maybe an entire family survived, and this was the son…?

It wasn’t something he could dwell on though, with the warm, wet feeling of blood continuing to seep through the warlock’s clothes and onto Shuichi’s own body.

Kokichi had regained consciousness around the time Shuichi made it home.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Shuichi had kicked open the bathroom door when he felt Kokichi stir. He set him down against the side of the bathtub, which the mage gripped at weakly to support himself.

He then turned to the smaller boy with helpless awareness of how much embarrassment was most likely visible on his face at that moment. “That’s good because… I kind of need you to take your clothes off.”

Clearly having to put in some strenuous effort, the mage managed to produce a low whistling sound. “I dunno how it works with you guys but that’s usually a pretty initimate request where I’m from.”

“I-I don’t think now is a good time to pretend you don’t understand me… We need to disinfect and dress your injury. Um… if it makes you more comfortable, I’ve seen a lot as a detective…”

The warlock had already begun to undress before Shuichi had finished speaking, leaving him trailing to a stop. Shuichi had been squatting to the appropriate height for assessing the boy’s leg wound, and was not as prepared as much as he had initially believed for the awkward circumstances of being eye level with the boy’s red boxer briefs.

You would imagine that a massive, cavernous, bleeding wound would be distracting enough to eliminate the embarrassment of being faced with someone in their underwear.

Kokichi proceeded to discard his bloodied clothing in the bathtub behind him and kicked his shoes and socks further against the wall with his good leg as Shuichi immediately straightened up to fetch a first aid kit that he’d never had to use in his several years of living alone until this day, in the strangest situation he could have possibly imagined.

“Nee-hee-hee, it’s really happening.” Kokichi commented unhelpfully as Shuichi returned from the bathroom cabinet and lowered himself onto his knees.

“I won’t be gentle if you make this any more uncomfortable for me.” Shuichi warned as he retrieved a packet of disinfectant wipes from the first aid kit.

The warlock snickered. “I’m _begging_ you to be gentle with me. I’ve never done this with anyone before.”

“Alright, I warned you. Don’t squirm – this is going to hurt.” Shuichi braced the warlock’s thigh with his other hand, anticipating the flinch that followed as soon as Shuichi, without any particular consideration for the boy’s comfort, pressed a wet disinfectant wipe to the wound.

“It stings…” the mage first feebly put his arms out seemingly to push Shuichi away, before stopping himself. He then protectively drew them around his own frame, as though he was trying to comfort himself. Shuichi spared him a glance – the boy’s features were drawn together in a pained frown, eyes glazed with unshed tears.

Shuichi closed his eyes for a moment and sighed, before lessening the force of his touch on the wound as he dabbed at where the flesh had been torn wide open with the disinfectant wipe.

“I’m not sure if I can dress this wound,” Shuichi mumbled, clumsily wrapping said wound in bandages that were staining red immediately, making them match in colour with the blood beginning to pool at Kokichi’s feet.

Shuichi chewed on his bottom lip anxiously. He couldn’t even call for help, lest the warlock was given a wound that he _really_ wouldn’t be able to heal from.

“As long as it stops bleeding, I can try some regenerative magic later. So it needs more pressure, get it?” The critique in the second half of Kokichi’s comment came in such a sneering tone that it caught Shuichi off guard, since the former had literally just been seconds away from tears.

But he decided not to question it and tightened the dressing.

The sorcerer winced immediately. “Ouchie, that’s so painful!” His face crumpled again and Shuichi panicked – the walls were thin and there was a loud echo in Shuichi’s bathroom. The last thing he needed was worried neighbours or even the police on his doorstep.

“It hurts, Detective… I’m so much smaller than you. You should be less forceful.”

Shuichi swallowed. “But you said-”

“Tighter. You need to do it quicker for the right pressure.” Kokichi spoke again, returning to his original flat tone, and Shuichi felt as though he could’ve physically gotten whiplash from that shift in attitude.

“Okay… I’m going to do that. But you can’t distract me this time. You can hold onto me to brace yourself if it hurts.”

When no response came – verbal or otherwise, Shuichi glanced up to see a completely neutral expression on the warlock’s face.

Out of all the faces Shuichi had seen him make in the short time that they had known each other – mocking, threatening, pained, carefree (even in these circumstances) – it was this one that Shuichi knew made him most nervous. With no smile or frown to draw attention away from his eyes, Shuichi was forced to look into them and their visually overwhelming warmness and saturation just for a glimpse of what the boy might be thinking.

Thankfully, the boy didn’t stay unresponsive for long, and hesitantly placed his hands on Shuichi’s shoulders.

Shuichi figured that was a gesture of co-operation when the rest of his clumsy, unskilled first aid went as smoothly as it possibly could.

* * *

It dawned on him as he was helping the mage change into a pair of spare old pyjamas after cleaning dried blood off of himself that Shuichi was technically harbouring a criminal right now.

Shuichi glanced at where the boy was sitting, at the foot of the futon Shuichi put out next to Shuichi’s own bed while Kokichi had gingerly stepped into the change of clothes he had been given. It was something Shuichi kept for whenever Kaito or Rantaro stayed over for the closer proximity between his house and work compared to theirs, and he imagined he would have to throw out the whole set and replace it once he’d gotten rid of Kokichi.

The boy was nibbling at a palm-sized apple tart with a glass of milk beside him (Shuichi hadn’t had the time to prepare anything for dinner and decided he was under no jurisdiction to share the pizza he’d ordered), with one leg of his pyjama bottoms rolled all the way up so he could keep an eye on the layers of clumsily applied bandages there.

Watching the mage beyond the open door of his bedroom, alternating between fiddling with his bedding for the night and his clothes, and then taking a small bite of apple pie with milk, and then seeming to shift awkwardly as he struggled to make himself comfortable with his injury, all from where Shuichi sat at his kitchen counter with his pizza, it was almost hard to see the boy for what he was – an enemy, and a national security threat.

He was just so… _small_.

Though as a detective, Shuichi would know better than anyone that even the most hardened of criminals were just human beings in the end. They smile, frown, cry and bleed alongside the crimes they commit, just like he had seen Kokichi do since meeting him.

Shuichi was sure Kyoko might have judged Junko Enoshima as a small, harmless high school girl too.

Ignoring the fact that Shuichi couldn’t particularly name Kokichi’s crime like he could name Junko’s, he left his judgments at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update: HAHA EDITED OUT A MASSIVE INCONSISTENCY HOPE NOBODY NOTICED
> 
> this chapter is shorter bc i thought this is a nicest place to leave off out of all the scenes that happen around this time, but i'll make up for it with something longer next! ((((most likely anyway haksjhgkfgh))))
> 
> added the pining tag cos of some ideas i had last night. can't wait to start writing that lawl
> 
> also, we hit the 10k mark! it's wild to me because we're still right at the beginning, but the longest thing i've ever written before was around 10k :0 i know - i am like little baby. i have SEEN some of the word counts on this website. but anyway this is really turning out to be an experience for me hahakjhf


	4. Friend or Foe?

_Kokichi didn’t sleep all night_ is the first thing Shuichi registered upon waking up to the sound of his alarm in the morning.

“You look awful. Why didn’t you sleep?” Shuichi rasped in his morning voice, fumbling with the flashlight feature on his smartphone. Early February sunrises were closer to 8 o’clock than 6 o’clock in Snowcrest, meaning Shuichi often woke up to the sparkle of the same stars that he’d fallen asleep to – and Kokichi was in the same upright sitting position against the wall that Shuichi had fallen asleep seeing him in. His futon also appeared undisturbed and Shuichi wondered why he even went to the effort of putting it out for a minute.

“Look,” Kokichi said in a firm yet barely audible voice as Shuichi stepped over the mage’s limbs and bedding in order to reach the light socket on the wall by the door.

Shuichi turned to the sight of Kokichi’s bandages unravelled around the leg he had treated, without a spot of blood on said leg. A tired grin adorned the sorcerer’s face.

“I made the regeneration spell work.”

“That’s… good.” Shuichi commented groggily, hesitant to pass such judgment so quickly when the mage still looked so close to death slumped against the wall like that.

“Is that what you were doing all night?” Shuichi picked up the pillow that was a part of his futon set and placed it in his lap as he sat across from the mage. The gesture put Shuichi at the correct level for eye contact and it was at that moment he realised that the sight of Kokichi’s scarlet irises were simply mildly uncomfortable now, rather than utterly frightening. He wasn’t sure if that would be because Shuichi had been getting used to them, or because the colour (and Kokichi’s dainty features in general) seemed to be dulled with exhaustion.

“Yeah. I said aether spells are usually pretty energy intensive, right? I didn’t eat much so…”

Shuichi immediately pictured the single apple tart he had fed the mage and felt guilt gnawing at him a little. The guilt evolved into panic. Looking at the boy’s limp form against the wall – there was no mistaking it.

“So…? Did you… did you use…” Shuichi swallowed thickly. “Did you use life force?”

It was like Shuichi’s stupidity gave Kokichi strength. He managed to fight the weight of fatigue on his eyelids off and the full circumference of his irises made themselves visible.

“I really overestimated the Future Foundation, wowie. If I wanted to use such a demanding healing spell with life force, mark my words – I would have used yours.” Shuichi suppressed a flinch. “It’s counterproductive otherwise. I look this bad because I was working on the nutritional value of one apple tart and a glass of milk, so it took all night.” The sorcerer’s eyelids fluttered momentarily.

“Why… Why _didn’t_ you use my life force?” Shuichi noted the lightest of frowns on the warlock’s otherwise indifferent expression. “Weren’t you angry? I didn’t treat you particularly well with dinner last night, and killing me here in my sleep wouldn’t have brought attention to your hiding place…”

“You make it sound like you _want_ to die…” That was the last thing Kokichi had the energy to say before the exhaustion rendered him unresponsive, with his head lolling towards the ground.

“That’s not it at all…” Shuichi said in case the warlock could still hear him.

Shuichi lifted the mage from his sitting position against the wall and placed him in his untouched bedding. As he did so, he realised just what was bothering him about the whole mystery in his arms right now – it was the very premise of his logic in his approach to this case.

Considering all the chances Kokichi had to kill that Shuichi knew of in the last few days: the teenagers in the forests, Shuichi, Shuichi and his co-workers, Shuichi again, Shuichi _again_ – it became as clear as day. His assumptions about the warlock’s character were no longer plausible.

So he discarded them.

Shuichi would consider the possibility that Kokichi wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

* * *

Kokichi seemed to had regained enough energy to move again about an hour and a half later.

Shuichi had been preparing breakfast (beans on toast – not extravagant, yet still a lot more than what Shuichi had most mornings) and had called the mage over to sit at the kitchen counter with him when he saw Kokichi’s purple head reappear from under the covers for the first time since leaving him to rest.

He’d hobbled over, evidently still in some kind of pain and sat where Shuichi had gestured for him to do so. He was hastily unrolling the leg of his pyjama bottoms as Shuichi placed four pieces of toast, a slab of butter and a bowl of baked beans in front of him.

“Uh, you must be really hungry. I didn’t know sorcery was that demanding, though it was horrible of me to not let you eat yesterday either way so… eat all you like.” Shuichi prompted as the mage fussed over his clothing.

Shuichi figured the sorcerer was highly guarded considering his circumstances, but it appeared even someone in his situation was susceptible to being unable to hide genuine surprise so quickly after waking up. The smallest crease was visible above the warlock’s sleep-weighted eyelids, but he had composed himself remarkably rapidly soon afterwards.

Kokichi seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t find the energy. Judging by how his expression had brightened up a little though, Shuichi assumed it was an unspoken “thank you” that hung in the air between them.

Shuichi noted how Kokichi had waited for the detective to start eating first before hesitantly mirroring what he was doing with his food. He deduced it was likely Kokichi didn’t actually really know how to feed himself, which prompted the conversation that ensued.

“How do you eat? In Snowcrest Forests, I mean.” Shuichi had asked as he placed a dollop of beans on his second piece of toast.

Kokichi had visibly been concentrating so hard on moving the beans between the bowl to his toast when Shuichi had looked across the counter at him that it was almost comical. Well, it was definitely comical but Shuichi didn’t feel like laughing.

“Of course I possess the life force of a nearby restaurant owner to serve me five course meals every evening after he finishes work.” He said as a little sauce spilled onto the counter in his efforts to feed himself.

Well, that was obviously a lie. The lack of fluency in his table mannerisms was only part of it – the closest restaurants were a significant distance away, and nestled among a number of other buildings in a high street. Having people wander into the forest every evening would draw suspicion from surrounding eyes in no time flat – something Kokichi had already established he didn’t want.

“I think there’s a lot of safe wild berries in Snowcrest Forests,” was the approach Shuichi tried next.

“Yeah,” Kokichi commented idly. “There’s a lot of grapes and shit near the cliffs. They grow faster with a certain spell, which in turn tires me out.” Kokichi looked across to Shuichi with a sheepish smile, which was a gesture Shuichi could feel himself internally celebrate for a reason he couldn’t quite place.

Seeing the sorcerer behave so sincerely just felt like a win for some reason. Shuichi judged the feeling as similar to the kind he got making progress on a tough case.

“Must’ve been really rough.” It really did explain a lot about the boy’s build.

Kokichi’s expression regressed to guarded and cautious again. “No… Like I said, I eat well.”

“Okay.”

It was 8 o’clock sharp when Kokichi had finished his meal. Shuichi had finished his two slices of toast a few minutes in advance, and had been browsing the internet on his phone when the boy across the table pushed his plates towards the middle of it, indicating he’d had enough. He’d eaten three out of four of the pieces of toast Shuichi had made for him, with the fourth nibbled at but ultimately given up on.

“Phewww!!” Kokichi stretched before leaning onto the kitchen counter, visibly content with his meal. Shuichi felt a little pride in having helped return the sparkle in the warlock’s eyes that were focussed on him as he collected the dirty dishes and covered what was left of Kokichi’s breakfast.

It was like watching a wilting rose perk up with a little water.

“It tasted cheap and bland but I ate a lot and feel better now. Not bad, Detective!”

“I’ll regard that as a thank you…” Shuichi had heard enough at this point to figure the smaller boy was just like an ill-mannered child. He seemed to be as mischievous as he looked – all wide eyes, impish grins and empty threats.

“Do you think you’re ready to leave then?” Shuichi had asked as he placed the pair’s dirty dishes in the sink. “I can replace your bottoms since I couldn’t get the bloodstains out of yours and it’s torn anyway, but I washed and dried the rest of your clothes overnight…”

Shuichi had looked up at that moment to see the devastated expression on Kokichi’s face. “Wh… What?” Shuichi stuttered, hastily closing the faucet in order to direct all his attention to the shiny liquid film over Kokichi’s eyes right then.

“Are you kicking me out already? After everything I’ve been through?!” Kokichi began to wail and it became apparent that it was an act. Again, the kind of exaggeration you get from a child. Yet, there were _real tears_ streaming down his face and collecting in his hands that he had placed on his cheeks, which gave Shuichi genuine discomfort despite that.

“I-I mean…! I mean…” He supposed children are still trying to make a point most of the time even when they’re behaving hysterically, and how do you fake tears like that at will anyway? On top of that, Shuichi figured he did want to learn more about the war and the circumstances surrounding the sorcerer’s survival, since the mystery had presented itself to him on a silver platter and all.

The thought process prompted Shuichi to take the mage seriously. “I mean, if you still need a little more time to recover, I don’t see why not…”

The warlock’s demeanour changed immediately – his expression neutralised, his hands returned to his lap and the silver tear tracks on his face stopped flowing as they dried in lines that ended at his chin. To say Shuichi was in awe would be an understatement, but he was too distracted by the reminder that there were double the dishes in the sink than normal and that he should hurry it up to make his reaction known.

“Oh. Well, I don’t really but I think I’ll stay anyway. That’s very kind of you. Could it be that you realise that you owe me your life?” Kokichi grinned a childlike grin. “I saved your life so it’s mine to toy with~ I’ll find a really fun way to kill you, Mr Detective, so just leave it to me.”

There was no malice in his tone, but the words spilling from his mouth were undeniably alarming. Again, he found himself unsure whether to take the mage’s antics seriously or not. He decided on a warning – Shuichi had decided to give the smaller boy the benefit of the doubt but he still didn’t owe anything to him.

“You shouldn’t say things like that…” _Or I might have to kill you first._

The Kokichi Staying Arrangements were made a few minutes before Shuichi had noticed the time. He’d quickly and clumsily left Kokichi with a change of clothes – his own two top pieces, now washed and dried, paired with an spare set of slim black trousers that Shuichi didn’t often wear – before dancing towards his own change of clothes for work.

He had been fussing over his tie at the door with Kokichi holding his clothes to his chest, visibly amused by Shuichi’s lack of composure. “I’m leaving… I need you to stay put. Don’t leave the house, don’t do anything that would draw attention to yourself, don’t make a mess anywhere and if you get bored, just press some of those buttons and maybe you can get the TV to work.” Shuichi gestured to the remote control on the coffee table several feet behind Kokichi.

Kokichi didn’t have much of a chance to comment on anything as he’d been faced with a closed door when turning back to look at where the detective had been a moment ago, but Shuichi had already noted the satisfied sparkle in the warlock’s eyes and figured all that needed to be said other than pleasantries such as goodbyes had already been communicated clearly enough. If he’d stayed any longer, he was definitely going to be late.

And late he was, by almost four hours.

Shuichi had been sprinting towards the business district for all of 5 minutes when he decided in his breathless state that it wasn’t worth showing up a few minutes late dishevelled and exhausted. It would just put him in a bad mood for the rest of his office hours.

He had opted for texting Tsumugi to let her know he was going to visit the local library for research into the previous day’s case – which wasn’t completely untrue.

New Snowcrest’s main library was funded by the Future Foundation too, and the upper floor was home to a vast archive of reports and documents detailing the history of The Tragedy and the war against magic.

A lot of the literature found there was given the status of classified government information. As such, Shuichi had to give proof of his identity as an approved and trusted employee of the Future Foundation (at least, a subsidiary company but Shuichi simply regarded that as a negligible detail – bare minimum or not, his rank was still enough to grant him access) at the door.

He found that one side of a large shelf was dedicated to history books and such that were publicly available, as a record of the kind of information that _was_ made public knowledge. That portion of the library was substantially small indeed.

Shuichi didn’t think much of it once he had sat down and began sifting through pages and pages of profiles. There was a lot that the general public just didn’t _need_ to know – if anything, it was great that the version of the story they had was so well condensed.

There was reason for Shuichi to search for the tiniest of inconsistencies in the smallest of details though – there was a whole contradiction in what was so widely believed that had been on his bedroom floor for the entire duration of last night, and he needed to learn more.

He’d sauntered over to a shelf in the back that was labelled _Snowcrest_ , judging the contents of the books that lined it from the titles written on their spines. _Life Force in Snowcrest, The Failed Execution of Makoto Naegi, Psychology of Snowcrest’s Sorcerers, The Killing of Class 78 th, A Comprehensive Recount of the Events of The Tragedy in Snowcrest_—

Yeah, that one’ll do for a start.

Pages yellowed with age and hand-drawn diagrams alongside old black and white photography told stories of several brutal clashes between the two sides of the war in Snowcrest alone, illustrated with timelines of battles and events with graphs detailing the state of the economy and government as The Tragedy unfolded.

He stopped at a strikingly familiar black and white photograph labelled _flutter guardians_.

_…Statue fountains set up near sorcerer settlements during the war that attack non-magical trespassers with the water in the mechanism. Some have been found to freeze the water into a number of weapons, others have been found to attack with the water itself by drowning victims in a water bubble around their heads. The criteria for triggering each kind of attack is unknown. A cooldown period for the guardians during which they revert to their default stance after attacking has been noted, but not well researched due to the high risk. This is also why it should be a town planning priority to neutralise this threat where it is found across Snowcrest. The guardians can only attack within a limited radius, when the victim is looking away. This includes the time taken for the victim to blink._

_Some mages were kept alive in order to rewrite Junko’s influence so that they may hunt their own kind rather than non-magical life force. This was particularly useful in wiping out communities protected by these guardians. In an attempt to retaliate, later-built flutter guardians possessed an ability that detected corrupted mages that would allow them to kill sorcerers that sought to kill their own, and also mages that sought to protect the human soldiers that may have been accompanying them during the events of the war. The productivity of this was questionable as ultimately, sorcerers were being killed, and the Future Foundation’s objective was being fulfilled…_

_…This is all tangential right now,_ Shuichi decided before continuing to flick through the thinning pages with his original purpose of looking for any writings on a surviving sorcerer in mind. He stopped again at a page titled _Snowcrest Death Register_.

As a detective and being aware that he was investigating a horrible historical event literally called The Tragedy, he figured he’d be unfazed by the callousness and straightforwardness of that title and the other ones he’d just seen. Well, Shuichi wasn’t always right – and this was one of those times.

Junko’s victims were listed first. Hajime Hinata – a human experiment that ended up assuming a second identity during attempts to instil sorcery in an ordinary boy which ended up facilitating and escalating the events of The Tragedy when Junko had come into contact with him. Nagito Komaeda, a sick boy manipulated by Junko after he was cured of his ailment with the healing properties of his classmate’s, Mikan Tsumiki’s, life force – a cure that came at the cost of her life. Mahiru Koizumi, Kazuichi Souda, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu… Lists of Junko’s victims and details of how they fell into despair, their activities as part of the Ultimate Despair and how they died seemed endless.

Shuichi eventually skipped to the pages detailing the executions of sorcerers in Snowcrest. He’d slowed down significantly at that point, carefully scanning for any writings that would even imply suspicion about a surviving sorcerer.

With page Shuichi read and with every minute that passed, it was increasingly evident that he was harbouring history’s biggest secret at home.

The reason why would become apparent when he’d reached an entire page subtitled _Ouma_.

In between the _Ogami_ and _Owari_ pages was the Ouma family’s very own leaf, which presented what seemed to be the details of Kokichi’s deceased family in the form of a family tree.

Shuichi’s eyes immediately flittered to the bottom of the page. The image that stared back was that of a boy who looked remarkably like Kokichi, with the same wide eyes but a notably gentler smile and curlier hair that fell into one of his eyes.

The most jarring detail that registered in Shuichi’s mind upon sight of the photograph was the image of a familiar black and white checkered scarf around the boy’s neck.

His picture was labelled _Shokichi Ouma, found 5 years later, age 10. Sniper rifle. Body recovered and confirmed from Snowcrest Lake. One of the last few sorcerers to be eliminated._

Shuichi willed the ache he felt from the tragic air of those notes away as he began to theorise about the meaning of what he was looking at. Due to the nature of the family tree illustrated there, any stage higher than the lowest branch of the diagram would suggest that Kokichi was around 30 or 40 years old at the time of publication, and therefore around 50 or 60 years old today. Shuichi figured it was safe to disregard that as a possibility.

That meant that Kokichi either had a brother, or his real name was Shokichi and he was able to fool the Future Foundation into thinking he was dead. Shuichi wondered if it were possible for magic to conjure up a fake body, but smothered the thought after judging it as a distraction for right now. He followed the diagram’s branches up by one stage, to a pair of images that Shuichi shakily presumed pictured Kokichi’s parents.

There were no siblings belonging to the husband nor the wife that would introduce the potential of Kokichi having aunts or uncles, or being born to another pair of Oumas in Snowcrest other than the same pair Shokichi was born to.

Shuichi wearily prepared himself to study the notes beside their photographs. _Kyouhei Ouma and Akiko Ouma, tortured for child’s whereabouts and executed when they did not yield._

He wasn’t sure why he was overcome with such personal sympathy at that point but at the sign of a lump in his throat, he figured it was a good time to return to the agency.

That was how he had gotten away with showing up during the office’s lunch hour at 1 o’clock, four hours after the start of a usual day.

Tsumugi had asked if he’d come across any interesting findings, which he’d answered with a _no_ – again, not quite a lie. If anything, his research earlier that day had frustrated him with the predicament of not knowing where to go from here – if Kokichi and Shokichi really were the same person (he figured he could see the face that wore that soft smile grow into one like Kokichi’s), that would put Kokichi at around 30 years old which just… didn’t make sense to Shuichi. Yet, there was no evidence to suggest Kokichi was a brother either.

He was _sure_ the warlock wouldn’t simply open up to him about it if asked, so that was most likely off the table – especially considering Shuichi figured the worst case scenario for doing so would be Kokichi murdering the detective in a fury for being so nosy, since that was a quality Kokichi had previously shown animosity for.

For some reason, Shuichi kinda wanted to ask regardless of that.

“That’s a shame, because they’re dismissing your case,” Tsumugi had said, bringing Shuichi out of the eye of his hurricane of thoughts before taking bite out of her sandwich.

“They’re shuper sure there’s no shorcerers left.” She spoke with a full mouth before swallowing. “They think you were pranked too, and you ended up unwittingly playing along once you saw red eyes. They reckon they were just a pair of contacts on a middle schooler. They looked really hard for any clues – no dice. On the plus side, it’s another case closed!”

Shuichi wondered if the rush of relief he felt at that moment showed on his face. Had a case he’d brought forward in any other circumstances been dismissed like that, he surely would’ve been sore about it for quite a long time.

But this meant Kokichi was safe from any investigations other than Shuichi’s own for now.

While he was certain he was going to be looking into the history of the war against magic to reveal the truth about the status of sorcerers as an extinct group of people, Shuichi still wasn’t completely sure what he wanted to do in regards to Kokichi. The mage would probably want to return to Snowcrest Forests since it wasn’t like he and Shuichi were friends or anything of the sort (Shuichi figured it was likely that being at his house felt like confinement to the sorcerer – imprisonment he had to deal with as he healed, akin to being stuck at hospital). It would be a convenient and straightforward process for the sorcerer to return where he was found, since Shuichi no longer had any desire to report him and have him executed.

Though, that did mean he was alone in his investigation. Maybe the mage wouldn’t mind becoming friends? His co-operation would be invaluable, Shuichi figured. He wondered how thin the ice he was treading on was with that thought.

Again, there wasn’t much time for Shuichi to dwell on his own thoughts. Lunch break was over quickly, and Shuichi had decided to make himself look busy with low-effort work like helping Rantaro with client consultations and managing Himiko when she arrived later that afternoon.

He avoided being assigned any big projects by Tsumugi this way – he didn’t want anything to distract him from the mysterious case of Kokichi Ouma.

Time seemed to slow all the way down when the first seeds of concern for the state of his property planted themselves in the soil of Shuichi’s mind. He was sure he’d imagined every possible scenario he could return home to – maybe Kokichi decided to fiddle with some dials and then set the kitchen alight, or maybe he stacked dominoes out of books Shuichi had lying around and dropped one prematurely and shattered the TV screen—

It was why his commute home that day had never been faster, and the relief he felt upon the sight he was greeted with had never been greater.

Kokichi, now clad in the clothes Shuichi had left him with, was sitting cross-legged on the floor and asleep with his face against his arms on the coffee table in front of a running TV. His striped blue and white pyjamas were folded neatly – flawlessly so – and left on the armrest of Shuichi’s loveseat.

He’d been watching Danganronpa which was… an interesting choice of show, to say the least. The ethics were questionable considering participants would have their memories of consenting to be on the show wiped and their personalities rewritten, and to imagine Kokichi enjoying a show that had its concept originating from a tragedy that his people had started made Shuichi a little uneasy.

Though he had to admit without prejudice – there was very little entertainment that acknowledged the morbid curiosity in everyone and nurtured it so well to make the series so well-loved and interesting even to Shuichi, regardless of its morality, that he just couldn’t not be impressed.

Kokichi stirred when he heard the door shut, and sleepily greeted Shuichi after what looked like initial confusion.

“I forgot where I was for a minute there. ‘Sup? Did you find any more lost children?” Kokichi yawned and again, the manner in which he did seemed so… innocent.

Though, he supposed someone would have to try hard to make their yawning look incriminating or suspicious. Shuichi began to wonder why he subconsciously kept looking for reasons to trust Kokichi so much. Was it co-operation… or friendship that he wanted more?

_Why?_

Shuichi willed himself to focus on the conversation. “I just did office work today, thanks for asking. The kids from yesterday are safe.”

“That’s unfortunate. If you walk into a creepy forest that many times then natural selection should be allowed to take its course, don’t you think?”

Shuichi wasn’t sure if the laughter that escaped him was from genuine amusement or disbelief that someone would extend a sentiment like that to children, but he laughed anyway. The sorcerer seemed as surprised at Shuichi’s chuckle as he was, initial wide crimson eyes melting into a pair of crescents as he sheepishly laughed alongside him.

“Well, why didn’t _you_ let natural selection take its course then?” Kokichi’s face fell into a serious expression again pretty quickly at the question, and it made Shuichi a little nervous immediately. “You could’ve let them die… and you could’ve let us die too. They’re called _flutter guardians_ right? They attack while nobody’s looking.” Shuichi swallowed thickly. “You… You were protecting us by watching from afar, right?”

“Huuuh? So you did a little research on the guardians and now you think you know all there is to know about me? You’re surprisingly arrogant.”

“If I’m wrong, I’d like to hear your answer to my question.” The tension was palpable as Shuichi spoke. Kokichi’s eyes were guarded – he clearly didn’t want to be read as anything other than threatening, most likely as some kind of defense mechanism of his, and Shuichi’s questions were evidently troublesome for him.

Shuichi wasn’t sure why he was provoking him.

“Didn’t I say I didn’t want to bring attention to where I was staying already? The answer was always right there in front of you, Detective. You must be shit at your job,” Kokichi sneered, yet there was hardly any anger in his tone. If anything, Shuichi thought he heard insecurity.

“Huh? But that doesn’t make sense. It’s not like you were using the guardian to protect yourself since you were stopping it from attacking, so why does it matter if authorities found dead bodies and rediscovered the guardian? You could’ve just hid until it was destroyed and carried on living in the forests in secret. Right?”

“Wrong,” Kokichi said without missing a beat, but paused immediately afterwards as if he didn’t even know why. Shuichi considered that a checkmate. “Maybe I just didn’t want to see dead bodies _while_ hiding in peace! Is that a lot to ask for? It’s not pleasant for me to see corpses either, y’know. You would probably enjoy that kind of thing more, actually.” He sighed heavily. “I’m bored of this now so let’s talk about something else.”

“Well, you’re in luck because I did discover a lot more on my little research trip that we can talk about. What do you know about Shokichi Oum—”

One moment Shuichi was leaning against the back of the living room loveseat with Kokichi’s wary eyes on him from the floor in front of it, where he had been sitting in front of the coffee table with Danganronpa still running on mute behind him, and the next Kokichi had seemingly telekinetically flung the loveseat across the room, closed the distance between the two of them with a harsh grab of Shuichi’s collar and pushed him against the wall with full force. Kokichi’s brought his face so close to Shuichi’s that he could feel the subtle heat emanating from his crimson eyes on his skin as they glowed with outrage and magical energy.

Shuichi surprisingly didn’t flinch. As Kokichi hovered, towering over him with air currents that his anger seemed to have generated through his hair, and even with the lack of still air and the sorcerer’s grip on Shuichi’s neck knocking all the oxygen out of his lungs, Shuichi still found himself more concerned for the condition of his sofa.

“I seriously hate nosy people.” Kokichi snapped, speaking slowly and threateningly in a low tone. “There’s nothing for you to know about him. There’s no reason for his name to be in your filthy mouth.”

“I was looking at the Snowcrest Death Register,” Shuichi continued, unfazed. “Judging by your inadvertant input, I’m assuming that _isn’t_ actually you, then? A brother, maybe?” Kokichi’s grip on Shuichi’s collar tightened a little as he served another rough shove against the wall. Shuichi choked.

“…Fine. Fine, I’ll co-operate with this little investigation of yours.” Kokichi’s feet hit the ground again with a little thumping sound as he returned to his height up to Shuichi’s shoulders again, the latter boy sinking into the ground upon release of Kokichi’s grip on him.

“But if we’re going to investigate the secrets of The Tragedy, we’re going to do it properly. I don’t care if it breaks you – in fact, I’ve decided this is how I want you to die.”

That was the final thing the sorcerer had spat in Shuichi’s direction before disappearing into the winter darkness beyond the front door of Shuichi’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longer chapter, like i promised. high word count for not a lot going on but sometimes you gotta just lore dump


	5. The Doors to the Heart Open at Daybreak

The warlock didn’t come back that night.

Shuichi had collected the cushions that had been scattered across the living room floor during Kokichi’s outburst and rearranged them back onto his now-upright loveseat where they belonged. He spent his day somewhat aimlessly – evenings after work were usually filled with the pages of a book, sitcoms running on his TV while he did housework or sometimes meetings with Maki and Kaito if he felt up to it but today Shuichi kind of just… sat.

He realised it was because he was waiting.

Shuichi had prepared dinner (for two this time) a little later into the evening. He couldn’t tell you if the bigger reason why was because it was routine or if it was because he was starting to get impatient, and needed to busy himself before he wound himself up.

It got cold while he waited, and Kokichi’s portion continued to get colder still into the night even after Shuichi eventually started and finished his meal several hours after preparing it.

During the washing up process, he’d noted that the fourth slice of toast Shuichi had made for Kokichi’s breakfast had disappeared. The mage had most likely gotten peckish while Shuichi was at work and eaten it then.

Even if it was small, it soothed Shuichi’s nerves a little to know he’d eaten something after breakfast that day.

Shuichi had decided to call it a day around 1 o’clock in the morning. As he laid on his side, the image of Kokichi’s futon still on the floor was what sent Shuichi off into a deep sleep.

He had left it there as it was – the doors were locked at this hour so it wasn’t like Kokichi could make his way back into the house by conventional means, but he figured he would leave said mage with the option of resting there if he were to find his way in some other way.

Shuichi wasn’t sure if he used the futon, but Kokichi certainly did find his way in overnight.

Rather than the usual sound of his alarm, Shuichi was roused by the feeling of weight on his chest that manifested in his dream as having been trodden on by a stampede of horses. Naturally, the shock woke him up.

His eyesight hadn’t had a chance to adjust to the darkness of his room when he felt around where the offending sensation was to find that Kokichi was sitting cross-legged on his chest, his face hovering mere centimetres away from Shuichi’s own.

“Mooooorning, sleepyhead~” Kokichi sing-songed, tone becoming flat when he narrowly dodged collision with Shuichi’s skull when the latter shot up in his bed.

“Ko… Kokichi!! You scared me…” Shuichi squirmed under Kokichi’s weight. “Move… I can’t breathe…”

The warlock swung both his legs over the side of Shuichi’s bed at the order, letting the detective sit up against his headboard and bring the warmth of his duvet up to his chin. “What… What time is it, even?”

“About ten to six,” Kokichi said, moving to pull at Shuichi’s grip on his comforter. “But more importantly, I’m hungry. Make me breakfast.”

“That’s right… You didn’t eat dinner last night. Where did you even go?” Shuichi asked groggily, rubbing at his eyes where sleep discharge was beginning to sink back into them.

“Just for a stroll. To blow off some steam. You really upset me, y’know?” Kokichi spoke with an obviously fabricated quiver of the voice, with an equally false crumple of the face – yet contrastingly genuine tears welling in his eyes. How does he _do_ that?

“I’m sorry. Honestly,” Shuichi said sincerely. “I understand I shouldn’t have pried like that.”

It’s not like the sorcerer seemed interested in answering any questions truthfully though, so a part of Shuichi still felt somewhat justified.

Though, he supposed he’d ruined any chance of Kokichi opening up to the detective on his own accord now, so he would never know if it was really worth it.

The unshed tears wobbling at Kokichi’s waterline seemed to vanish. “I was lying. There’s no way someone as puny and irrelevant as you could upset me. I’m still surprised at how arrogant you can be.”

Well, _that_ was certainly a lie if… literally the entirety of yesterday evening was anything to go by.

“You don’t have to be so polite with all the apologies and whatnot anyway. I’m not going to change my mind about killing you, not even if you beg. Nee-hee-hee~”

“That… wasn’t my intention.” Shuichi pulled his comforter around himself closer, in an attempt to keep his bare skin from the cold air of six o’clock in the morning which Kokichi rendered pathetic a moment afterwards with his own gesture of pulling it away again. “I probably can’t stop you if you want to kill me. I wanted to learn about you, but I was unfair in how I did it and I get that. Maybe… you’ll grow less wary if I told you a little about myself too?”

Something red-hot and angry flashed through Kokichi’s crimson eyes at the offer and Shuichi wondered what he’d said wrong. “Nee-hee-hee~ That would make us even, wouldn’t it? I wonder what kind of pretentious tale you will tell me… I’d love to hear it.”

“P-pretentious? I mean… If you’d give me a chance… I think we might have a little more in common than you’d imagine. I came from nothing too. I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember.”

“Wowie~ We’re the same. I feel so strongly bonded to you now, Mr Future Foundation Detective.” Kokichi’s tone seemed free of the sarcasm, passive-aggression and mockery that Shuichi knew was definitely present somewhere in that exchange. The smallest hint of irritation weighing down on the warlock’s eyebrows from what Shuichi could see in the half-light of daybreak was what gave him away.

“I… That’s not what I was trying to say.” Shuichi buried his face into the part of his comforter he had gathered at his chin. The morning migraine was coming. “Never mind… I get it, you’re not interested.”

“You _don’t_ get it.” Kokichi said firmly. The tone of his voice made Shuichi lower his comforter and peer up at him again. “You seem to want me to be comfortable with you, as if you want us to be friends… But you pry into my life with no regard for my privacy and then you start to share your own story with willingness that I wasn’t granted, and you call that “even”. You call that “fairness”. You think we share common ground because we both have no family as if you’ve forgotten the world we live in. My family was _torn away_ from me. There’s no way we could be on level ground.”

There was a pause.

“Are you finished?” Shuichi asked quietly. “I want to hear everything you have to say,” he added when Kokichi’s only response was a look of surprise.

“Well…” Kokichi began. “I guess I’d also like to add that you have the power to make me disappear whenever you want. If you decide one morning that you’re bored of this case,” he gestured to himself, “o-or maybe after you uncover the truth, you can just report me and I’ll be in another world by evening. The nerve you have… to think we could be friends or something, considering all this.”

Shuichi was sure he wasn’t the only one that had registered the slight stutter in Kokichi’s wavering voice. He figured the warlock was probably internally beating himself up over the slip of the mask.

“Kokichi… you opened up to me just now. You do realise that, right?”

Kokichi visibly began to get angry, but seemed to recognise that Shuichi was right. He fixed his wary eyes on the detective. “I never said we would be even if I talked about myself; it was _you_ that assumed that – twice – and I asserted that wasn’t what I was trying to say. I just thought it might make you a little more comfortable if we had some conversation. And it seemed to work,” he said, gesturing towards Kokichi.

“I understand now – you’re afraid, and you have every reason to be…” Shuichi continued when it seemed like Kokichi’s surveying gaze was prompting him to do so. “I only hunted you with my co-workers two days ago. I don’t expect you to trust me right away. And I think… if you keep threatening to kill me to match the danger you think I pose to you, you can stop. You’re pretty perceptive so I’m surprised you haven’t noticed…”

Shuichi paused, offering Kokichi a bittersweet smile. “I’m seriously a coward. If I could bear the burden of knowing I killed someone, even if it was someone I was so heavily indoctrinated into believing was my enemy and the enemy of everyone I love, I would have left you for dead in the forest that day.” The lump forming in Shuichi’s throat was beginning to hurt. “…All I can really do is hide behind my titles. Future Foundation detective, except not really… Kyoko Kirigiri’s student – I’ve never even met her,” Shuichi let out a small self-deprecating chuckle at that, which Kokichi surprisingly seemed to smile at a little – it was just a hint, but it was definitely there.

“I’m not really sure of myself, if I’m where I’m supposed to be or anything like that – especially now that I realise just how much I’m lacking, but… I think I’m sure I’m grateful to you for my life, and I want to unravel the mystery of your situation.”

“…You _think_ you’re sure?” Kokichi repeated after him softly, tucking a lock of purple hair behind his ear.

"…See what I mean?" The pair of them laughed a little. "I’m sorry. I mean I _am_ sure. I know I’m sure.”

“Well, that’s just peachy.” Kokichi’s expression brightened considerably, into something more playful. “Thank you for all that introspection nobody asked for. If you’re done monologuing, I’ll have breakfast. Otherwise I might have to kill you for boring me half to death!” Kokichi’s touch was warm as he pulled Shuichi up by both hands.

“And…” Kokichi had bounced to the other side of the room where the door had been left ajar overnight and tossed Shuichi his bathrobe before he’d begun speaking again. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re lacking just because you didn’t want to kill someone.”

The warlock disappeared into the corridor after that.

It would seem as though the detective's heart did reach Kokichi after all.

* * *

Normality gradually found the unlikely pair.

Shuichi had found himself with another mouth to feed, sure – and _boy_ , did he like to eat – but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle on a Future Foundation employee’s salary.

(Well, subsidiary company but again – details, details. The point was that he made good money and could cover Kokichi’s extra living costs.)

Shuichi considered Kokichi’s half of the rent paid when the latter fell into the routine of doing housework while Shuichi was away. Shuichi had always been a pretty responsible homeowner – he just didn’t vacuum as often as he should’ve, his desktops would often become disorganised and he saw little need to fold his clothes unless he was going to be wearing them to work the next day.

(Even then, it was debatable.)

Turned out, actual magic wasn’t anything like Himiko’s tricks that she would gather the detectives and assistants around her for from time to time. Shuichi would always applaud her when she finished her performances though, as would the other staff members of Kyoko’s detective agency (save for Miu who would always find something obscene to say, without regard for Himiko’s age). He figured young people didn’t need any more reasons to feel unwanted or worthless. A little time and attention is a small price to pay for someone’s smile.

But yeah, whilst Himiko’s “magic” was done entirely for performative purposes (since, despite what the intern said, it was not _real_ magic – something Kokichi had confirmed beyond doubt when Shuichi had mentioned her self-proclaimed proficiency with “mana” in passing conversation, which put a confused frown on Kokichi’s face as he informed Shuichi that mana did not actually exist outside of _Dragon Quest_ and her friends’ visits to Snowcrest Forests were nothing but childish antics), Shuichi rarely even saw Kokichi perform his sorcery.

The only evidence the detective had to suggest that Kokichi was frequently practicing it was from the changes around the house Shuichi would find on days that the warlock would be especially demanding and impatient about food upon the former’s return home from work. Some changes were subtle, others less so – tangled electric cables behind the TV were reorganised one day and dusty piles of books found their way to orderly shelves that Shuichi could vow had never looked that immaculate since the day he’d built it. That was the kind of sorcery that was easily noticeable to an impressed Shuichi. It took him comparatively longer to realise that Kokichi had changed the scent of the shampoo that the pair of them shared from strawberry to apple at some point, mostly because he couldn’t care less about the scent of his shampoo.

Kokichi seemed to enjoy the surprise on Shuichi’s features when he’d asked him about it though. He wondered what other small things the warlock toyed with without Shuichi’s awareness.

Shuichi had actually witnessed it with his own eyes on two related occasions.

A fortnight into Kokichi’s stay, Shuichi had been lying awake in bed well into the night. Sleep hadn’t been coming to him – he’d gotten scolded for zoning out during a client consultation with Tsumugi that day.

(He’d been thinking about documents he’d reviewed the evening prior for Kokichi’s case.)

It would seem Shuichi’s restlessness was contagious, because he’d seen his new roommate crawl out of his futon – seemingly when he’d assumed the detective was asleep – and proceed to open and close drawers with the accompaniment of flashes of light and suppressed shuffling sounds at regular intervals.

Shuichi vividly remembered how unsure he was whether to stop the warlock and ask what he was doing or not. He watched for a while, considering all the possible harm that could come of Kokichi’s antics.

There were very few serious conclusions that Shuichi reached, but the thought of his boxers being hidden in another dimension when he woke up the next morning was the one that prompted him to attempt to make his awareness known to the warlock.

By the time he had made his mind up though, Kokichi had already faceplanted back onto his pillow.

Shuichi pretended to be surprised in the morning when he had seen that all the contents of his drawers were folded and sorted by type of clothing.

“Nee-hee-hee… I can’t stand slobs.” Was the explanation Kokichi had offered over a plate of pancakes that morning. “Also, you save a lot of space if you keep your drawers like that, y’know. Since I did you a favour, I get to keep the extra space! Buy me clothes, Detective!”

The second occasion was the same evening, as Shuichi was on his doorstep in order to fulfill the warlock’s demand from earlier that day. He’d figured it was a reasonable thing for Kokichi to ask of him, since the warlock had been alternating between a set of Shuichi’s spare pyjamas and his own clothes which were evidently worn by time.

It had appeared that Kokichi had yet another very polite request to make as he stood, wailing at the door and gripping Shuichi’s sleeve with large, large tears running down his face.

“Take me _with_ you, you ahoge-wielding swamp wretch!”

Shuichi sighed, pulling a handkerchief from his trenchcoat pocket. He blotted at Kokichi’s face with it, which was a gesture the latter appeared very pleased about.

“You have very pretty, big, bright, round eyes,” The warlock swayed a little at the compliment. “Not to mention, they are very, very red indeed. Kyoko Kirigiri herself will be able to see them all the way from the States.” Shuichi wasn’t even sure if that’s where she was right now but that was beside the point.

Kokichi’s face fell again. “I can’t believe you’ve taken me prisoner like this… You haven’t let me outside in two weeks! How cruel, Detective Saihara! I trusted you! I could cry…”

Shuichi pondered for a moment. He supposed it couldn’t be healthy for someone to not get any fresh air for prolonged periods of time. “I mean there is something we could try. Follow me. And I said you could call me Shuichi…”

Kokichi trailed behind Shuichi with a barely audible _yeah, but that’s boring_ until the pair of them had reached the bathroom.

Shuichi had snatched up a contacts case from a cabinet (that Kokichi had so helpfully reorganised at some point in the last two weeks) on their way there; he had a prescription set for hyperopia but he often opted to just wear his reading glasses when he needed to. He’d been given a clear set that he wore on the occasions that he did wear them (usually on days he knew there would be long meetings), and a coloured set he kept just for the hell of it because he always did want his eye colour to match his hair colour like how Kaito’s did. (He never wore them despite that, though. It felt like too bold of a fashion statement that the likes of Kaede, Miu and Rantaro would definitely notice and comment on, and he didn’t want to draw that kind of attention to himself.)

Shuichi felt unspeakably cheated when the dark greyish blue of the lenses didn’t show up on Kokichi’s eyes. If anything, the hue of his irises seemed even brighter than before.

“Oh man,” Kokichi chuckled sheepishly. “You’re super-duper blind.”

“I’m… super-duper blind.” Shuichi repeated after him dryly, in the process of prying the plastic out of his eyes again (one that was made unfathomably difficult when Kokichi insisted on blinking several times per second). “Is that what you’re choosing to pay attention to? It feels like it’s impossible for you to go outside…”

“That’s because you’re wasting so much timeeeee.” Kokichi whined. “Let’s leave already.”

“I’m sorry, I know you want to take a walk,” Shuichi mumbled as the lens finally popped out of Kokichi’s left eye. Shuichi had to lean in pretty close to the warlock’s face and place a hand on the back of his head in order to brace him and just like the only other time the two of them had been in Shuichi’s bathroom together, it was pretty uncomfortable. Kokichi had little regard for that though, and had even leaned in a little more to press their foreheads together at one point. Shuichi had backed off awkwardly. “But I really don’t want to risk anyone noticing. It’s not just you that’ll be executed but I’ll be put under investigation, too. I don’t know what might happen to me after that but I’m sure they won’t overlook it. Please understand.”

“Jeez, if it matters to you this much…” Kokichi straightened his posture and moved to face Shuichi directly.

Shuichi then watched as a dark purple hue consumed the full circular area of Kokichi’s irises, starting from the rim and through to the pupil until the last few specks of crimson disappeared.

“There. How do you think I lived so long?”

“What… the hell…?” It was… _unnerving_ what a difference it made to how the warlock looked, and even more unsettling still how he’d even _done_ that.

Kokichi leaned in towards the bathroom mirror, inspecting the results of his work on his eyes. “Sorcery is a lot more resilient than that, y’know. It’s insulting you’d think a bit of plastic would contain it. I feel like even The Tragedy did a worse job than anyone suspects…” Kokichi turned towards him, and the usual playful smile Shuichi had grown used to seeing on his small, pale face turned sinister for a split second. Shuichi wondered if he’d imagined it.

“W…wait!! This is a pretty big deal!” Shuichi exclaimed as Kokichi casually began to make for the exit. “Why were you even in hiding if you could just do that?! There could be so many mages living among us if you all had that trick!”

“Mmm… I don’t like where that logic is going. It’s gonna take you down a boring and fruitless road, so I’ll clear it up for you right now. Are you listening? I really am the last awakened sorcerer in the world right now. And that’s the truth.” Kokichi walked back across the room to where Shuichi was and tugged him by the sleeve. “You’ve wasted enough time already. Let’s go, and let's make it quick. Before I pass out from hunger.”

_Oh that’s right… Sorcery makes Kokichi hungry._ That would explain why the warlock stayed in hiding despite having a method of blending in with non-magic humans, but Shuichi couldn't help but feel like another mystery lied therein Kokichi's answer.

Last… _awakened_ sorcerer? _Right now?_ The detective wasn’t sure if his concerns about that wording was legitimate and valid, or if he was overthinking as he often does but it wasn’t something Kokichi let him dwell on for much longer. (He'd grabbed Shuichi by the ahoge - a type of abuse he thought he was safe from as long as Maki wasn't in the vicinity - and had dragged him off back towards the front door.)

Shuichi stepped out onto a road illuminated only by the glow of streetlights, and tentatively began his journey beside a purple-eyed Kokichi Ouma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the boys are getting used to and opening up to each other bless. again, i was expecting to write a few more scenes in this chapter but the word count went out of control so i decided to split them up. i also started to diverge from the original draft a lot about a chapter or two ago so that as well as the story turning out to be a lot longer than i expected is making me remember just how unpredictable writing can be haha but i'm having fun and i'm mostly happy with how things are turning out
> 
> btw! i characterised shuichi and kokichi as a combination of their pregame and during-game personalities but with a little more emphasis on the latter. which is why shuichi is so obsessed about the future foundation and kokichi doesn't lie much (but still does a little if he thinks it'll be fun), but these characteristics aren't too focused on.
> 
> kudos and comments and whatnot are all really appreciated! i always reply to every single comment so please leave one if you feel like it. it helps to know i have an audience hahahkjfhgd. at the time of uploading this chapter, this had 690 hits NICE


	6. Oh No, He's Cute

For the duration of the outing, Shuichi found himself wondering how strange it would be perceived if he were to purchase a child’s harness and put it on Kokichi like a leash.

Several times, the boy had suddenly changed course and walked into oncoming traffic. His reaction time was either too slow, or he’d been distracted by clothing displays (since the two of them _were_ on a shopping trip after all) to stop the warlock and about half the time he hadn’t even realised he’d wandered off until he turned only to be greeted by the sight of vehicles in disarray accompanied by the sound of road rage.

Every time Shuichi had caught up with the smaller boy, he’d just laugh in Shuichi’s bright red face. As if everything was all just a game.

“I won’t bring you outside ever again if you keep behaving like this,” Shuichi had hissed the seventh time it happened. Kokichi didn’t laugh this time, and regardless of whether the anxiety reflected in those large purple eyes at the warning was genuine or not, Shuichi had immediately felt rotten for it.

Sighing, he thread his arm through Kokichi’s. It was done both so that Kokichi couldn’t wander off anymore and also as a comforting gesture.

(Moreso the latter, but Shuichi hoped Kokichi wasn’t too aware of this fact.)

Kokichi had leant into the touch with a satisfied softness about him as the two of them walked, finally side by side for the first time since leaving Shuichi’s house half an hour ago. It was becoming apparent that Kokichi had a case of touch starvation at this point since he would lean into Shuichi like this whenever the two of them were in close proximity. It had been going on for about a week now – he’d done it earlier that day during the contact lens situation, and he’d often show up to cling at Shuichi while he made meals. It happened so often that he could see it becoming routine to give Kokichi a hug before breakfast.

Like Shuichi treated Himiko and her ploys for attention with her magic tricks, he figured if it were just a simple little hug every so often, Shuichi didn’t see any reason to decline and send him away if it made his situation a little more bearable.

Shuichi kind of enjoyed the new company in the kitchen these days, too.

The pair had been walking maybe 30 seconds when Shuichi felt Kokichi’s arm slip away and the latter begun to excitedly bound off in another direction, but he had this time stopped at the firm call of his name.

“Sorry, I got a little excited… Again.” He said as he returned to Shuichi’s side, sporting a bashful grin.

It seemed as though Kokichi’s excitement was contagious, because Shuichi couldn’t help a small smile at how sincerely the warlock was behaving now.

…It made Shuichi a little shy, so he turned away.

“Aw, you don’t have to be mad. I’m sorry,” Shuichi heard the mage say, re-linking his arm with Shuichi’s.

“Oh, I’m not mad…” Shuichi began, turning towards Kokichi again. Upon eye contact, he was again overwhelmed by the urge to avert his gaze.

_…You’re just kind of cute, that’s all._

Shuichi ushered Kokichi into the closest clothing store in order to redirect his train of thought.

Once inside though, Kokichi had become significantly quieter and subdued. Shuichi had reached a sweater display and gestured for Kokichi to go ahead and point out anything he wanted, but the latter boy just took a few hesitant steps forward, came to a halt and looked between Shuichi and the display timidly.

It was a complete 180 from what Shuichi had been dealing with for the entirety of the trip up to this point that he simply didn’t know what to think.

“…Hey, come on.” Shuichi had prompted as he picked up a plum-coloured cardigan and held it against the warlock’s body. _It matches his hair_ , Shuichi had mentally noted a little happily. “The one time you can talk and bounce around and you don’t want to all of a sudden? Are you tired? Did you… wear yourself out?” Shuichi motioned towards his eyes so the mage would understand what he was trying to refer to. Shuichi figured they’d need a signal for that in the future.

“Is it kind of weird if I just want a few sets of the same thing…?” Kokichi was mumbling and avoiding eye contact, opting to look to the side instead.

Even when the sorcerer had been impaled by a magic ice lance, he’d still had a teasing tone and the smallest of smiles on his face. The playfulness in his voice being swapped out for such a visibly intense and uncharacteristic anxiety was something hugely disconcerting and worrisome to Shuichi. He felt the concern gnaw at him as he watched the warlock fidget with the hem of the large black wool jumper that Shuichi had first found him in just over a fortnight ago in the forests.

“I want… more big black sweaters, more white shirts and more white bottoms. I hate this…” he motioned towards the black trousers Shuichi had given him to replace the torn and bloodied white bottoms Kokichi had originally been wearing. “And if you can find them… more checkered black and white scarves. If not, I’ll just hang onto mine.”

Kokichi seemed… distraught. Like he was barely keeping it together all of a sudden, and he might fall apart if Shuichi just looked at him funny.

_Kokichi… What kind of burden do you bear?_

“…Alright. It’s not a problem, of course it isn’t.” Shuichi put an arm around Kokichi’s shoulder and gave him a little squeeze. “Let’s go find what you asked for.”

Half an hour later, two shopping bags with three of the same outfit in hand, the dark-haired pair were en route back to Shuichi’s house.

At one point during the trek home, Kokichi had been startled by the loud music of an ice cream van starting up. The jump made Shuichi chuckle a little. The very face of evil according to the Future Foundation was a little over 5 feet tall and flinches at ice cream van music.

“Have you not seen one of those before?” Shuichi asked as the warlock regained his composure.

“Not in the middle of February!” Kokichi squeaked. “Sometimes I heard them drive around the houses near the forests during summer though.”

“Ever got to try one?”

“I stole what I had to,” Kokichi’s tone turned a little sharp. “Ice cream isn’t on the list.”

And on that note, Shuichi offered to carry Kokichi’s half of the shopping bags while he devoured a triple scoop with raspberry sauce that Shuichi had bought for him, still arm in arm with the detective despite the fact that he’d already began behaving himself a while ago now.

“I hope that doesn’t make you sick,” Shuichi mumbled idly as he registered the sound of Kokichi’s sniffling a few minutes into the ice cream.

“Wowie, I’m so blessed to have you care so much about me.” Kokichi brought himself closer in order to nudge Shuichi’s side and he felt the warlock’s body heat radiating through the sleeve of his trenchcoat.

He resisted the urge to pull Kokichi in closer.

The resistance made him feel hollow. Shuichi then became confused.

“Well… yeah, you live in my house so if you get sick, I’ll probably get sick too.” Shuichi mumbled. Something felt off about that answer – it was as if it was communicating entirely the wrong thing, but Shuichi couldn’t pinpoint the issue.

Kokichi backed off a little at that answer though, giving Shuichi his much-needed breathing space. “…Well you don’t have to worry. The cold doesn’t cause colds, germs do. And your puny non-magic germs have nothing on me.” He proceeded to sneeze after that.

The pair turned a corner into a quiet residential space, the centre of which was where Shuichi’s house was situated, nestled in between two others in terraced fashion.

Shuichi had just been thinking about how relieved he was that the whole bizarre impromptu shopping trip had sailed along without a single crease, wrinkle or slip up.

He supposed he jinxed himself with that.

Kaede and Rantaro at 12 o’clock.

It felt like Shuichi’s world was shrinking at an exponential rate as he saw the blonde girl in conversation with their co-worker pad down the pavement towards him. To his left beyond Kokichi was a congested road he couldn’t just run through, to his right was a wall, behind him was a sea of pedestrians and right in front of him was the look of recognition on Kaede’s face as she began to hurry towards him with Rantaro following suit behind her.

“Kokichi,” Shuichi whispered urgently, loud enough for only the boy next to him to hear. “Whatever you do or say. You absolutely can’t mess up right now.”

“Shuichi!” Kaede beamed as she reached him. He offered her a stiff smile. “I’m glad I ran into you now. I’ve been trying to tell you about this all week but you’ve been so busy lately!”

Shuichi, of course, was able to understand what she meant by that immediately. He’d been leaving the house a little earlier every morning to visit the library before scuttling straight to his office, where he would remain for a large portion of the day with a growing collection of smuggled library books on his desk. He’d been completely absorbed in Kokichi’s case the past week, and had only been coming out of his office to shadow Rantaro or Kaito in order to make sure Tsumugi was convinced he was still helping out around the agency.

“Oh, but you are…” Kaede directed her attention towards Kokichi as Rantaro caught up to her.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Rantaro commented.

“I don’t think he does.” Kaede responded thoughtfully, eyeing the colour of the ends of Kokichi’s hair and presumably noting the purple tint compared to Shuichi’s own greyish blue. Shuichi felt Kokichi shrink back away from the two foreign pairs of eyes inspecting him. The detective firmly squeezed the arm in his as a small soothing gesture.

It would appear this made Kokichi more comfortable than necessary.

_This is my cousin, Kokichi_ was what died in Shuichi’s throat as Kokichi pulled Shuichi’s arm into his chest and declared, “I’m his boyfriend, Kokichi! Nice to meet you.”

Kaede looked surprised for a moment but then nodded, whereas Rantaro had no reaction.

Shuichi wondered if his internal screaming was visible on his face.

“Well in that case, you’re invited too!” Kaede beamed again, extending a hand before Shuichi could even say _what kind of joke is that, cousin dearest?_ Kokichi looked between Kaede’s face and her hand, visibly confused at the gesture, before opting to put his hand out too while briefly shooting Shuichi an apprehensive glance. Kaede enthusiastically took his limp hand in both of hers and shook firmly.

“Aww, he’s so cute…!” Kaede whispered not-so-quietly to Rantaro beside her, which he’d responded to with his own fond smile in Kokichi’s direction.

“Invited to…?” Shuichi interjected, anxious to know exactly what he’d gotten himself into.

“Yeah, he’s invited too.”

“No, invited to what, Kaede?”

“Oh!” Kaede pulled out her phone from her handbag and unlocked it to a very familiar application.

Shuichi hadn’t been checking the office group chat for a few days now – in fact, he’d silenced the entire thing so that he could claim ignorance to any plans that he didn’t attend in favour of looking into The Tragedy every evening.

He figured that’s why Maki and Kaito were finally able to take the plunge into the hand-holding stage of their relationship now that the latter wasn’t able to reach Shuichi and drag him along to plans he was usually too shy to only ask Maki to join him for.

“Party at the bar closest to the agency tomorrow night, and Tsumugi’s bringing her fiance so I don’t see why Kokichi here can’t come! It looks like everyone’s coming – oh, except Himiko, of course.” She thrust her phone into Shuichi’s shaking hands. There was a text from Kaito on it about the party, but Shuichi couldn’t hear himself read it in his head over the sound of his final few brain cells screaming at the situation.

Kaede glanced excitedly between Shuichi and Kokichi, and Shuichi didn’t know where to even begin with deciding how to decline her offer.

“See you there, then?” Kokichi spoke somewhat hesitantly before Shuichi could make up his mind, making him stiffen at the warlock’s side.

He couldn’t even laugh at the situation.

“Great! I’ll forward this to you again later. Make sure you open it this time. Bye!”

And just like that, it was just Shuichi and Kokichi again.

He needed to sit down. This wasn’t how he was prepared to deal with the whole Hiding Kokichi thing. Was there any way Shuichi could cancel and say something came up without Kaede or Kaito prying for details? He really wasn’t sure – he knew how nosy his co-workers could be. It was part of the job description as a detective to be nosy, he supposed.

“Um…” The warlock’s soft voice pulled Shuichi back down to Earth. “Should we… hurry home? I’m getting a little hungry… Sorry.”

It was then Shuichi realised he’d been planted to the spot with worry for a whole minute or two. “Don’t apologise for that,” he said instinctively. _Maybe apologise for the ridiculous situation you just put me in though!_ Shuichi’s thoughts went unvoiced. Getting into absurd circumstances and dancing his way out of them was an art Shuichi had mastered in his 23 years of life, and this was just another scene in the dragged out, repetitive comedy performance that he has the pleasure of calling his life.

Shuichi proceeded down the road again, tugging Kokichi along by the sleeve. He figured he couldn’t blame Kokichi for the panic answers – judging by how fast they had come out, it was likely the mage had been several many times more startled by the sudden exchange than Shuichi was.

(As the pair reached his doorstep, the detective mentally noted that he preferred linking arms rather than pulling him along by the sleeve.)

…It was strange to Shuichi that _that_ was the thought that ended up standing out, despite all the internal chaos and panic he was in at that moment. He then felt irritated at himself.

“I don’t think there’s a way to get out of this one. It’s a good thing we literally just got you new clothes to wear,” Shuichi commented as Kokichi made a beeline for the kitchen.

Shuichi hadn’t even taken his coat off before the demands for food came through. He sighed. He’d been overlooking Kokichi’s dismal manners ever since the two of them met since he figured he wasn’t in much of a position to ask for much when the sorcerer was sparing his life every single day – especially considering said sorcerer got himself impaled to do so at one point. But he figured that by now he was worthy of a little more respect from the purple-haired boy, considering he slept in Shuichi’s spare futon, in Shuichi’s spare pyjamas, before waking up in the morning in Shuichi’s room and eating Shuichi’s food and proceeding to kill time with Shuichi’s TV, Shuichi’s books and Shuichi’s video games all bought with Shuichi’s money.

Surely he deserved a little courtesy from Kokichi at this point.

Patience was definitely one of the things Shuichi was praised for most by people around him, but he could feel it wearing thin… particularly when the warlock would detail why he had the right to enslave Shuichi and toy with his life every so often. Shuichi had sensed no malice in his words but rather playfulness so again, he would overlook it.

He was really starting to feel like it was a little unfair now.

Kokichi Ouma wasn’t just a liar – he was mean, demanding and pulled pranks at Shuichi’s expense often.

So he wasn’t sure why he’d felt so warm, light and happy when Kokichi had reappeared at the doorframe after leaving Shuichi in his kitchen chopping onions, twirling in his new set of clothes and asking how he looked.

_Same as ever_ , was probably the correct answer to that question considering Kokichi had bought three of the same set of clothes he’d been found in with just the smallest negligible differences in production quality and design but Shuichi found “You look cute,” leaving his mouth instead.

Shuichi couldn’t tell if the burning sensation in his eyes were from the chopped onions or the sheer intensity of the mixture of feelings he had at that moment.

“Nee-hee-hee~ Thank you. Do you need any help?” Shuichi had moved to ignite the cooker, but Kokichi beat him to it with a snap of his fingers.

“Can you make the rest yourself?” Shuichi had asked, unable to feel at ease in the other’s presence as Kokichi joined him behind the kitchen counter.

Kokichi had learnt a few simple dishes by the end of his first week with Shuichi so he could feed himself while the detective was away, but said detective generally chose to cook when he could. He didn’t quite trust the sorcerer to not make any mistakes – in fact, Shuichi figured Kokichi might even set his kitchen alight deliberately for fun or something.

The mage moved towards the stove as Shuichi retreated to the sitting room, where a stack of books from the library’s archives were resting on the coffee table. He curled up into the armrest of the living room loveseat before picking one up, sighing.

Sifting through these old records hadn’t come of much use in figuring out Kokichi’s case, but that was something Shuichi had expected. There were as many warlocks as there were ordinary people back then – he couldn’t expect everything to be relevant. Which is why Shuichi had found himself quite the expert in The Tragedy’s history in a lot of useless ways, with details about key victims like Chiaki Nanami and Hajime Hinata committed to memory.

Speaking of Hajime Hinata, the page the book had opened to featured his scowling picture on it. Shuichi read the page, and then read it again when he realised none of the words were registering.

…And then he read it again.

Frustrated, he put the book back down and opted for television instead. He figured it wasn’t worth fighting whatever was distracting him at this point and winding himself up.

He’d picked it up again around the time Kokichi had finished dinner.

“Wowie,” Kokichi had piped up from behind the sofa, making Shuichi jump. “Mr Hinata’s a pretty cool one huh? They turned him into a mage. Look at how red his eyes went,” Kokichi pointed at the picture of the boy that was labelled “after”, completely unrecognisable when compared with the picture labelled “before”. A creepy, glowing crimson hue was visible behind his messy long black hair.

“I know it’s kind of irrelevant but I think I wanna know how they did that. Did you manage to figure it out, dearest detective?”

“I got nothin’,” Shuichi responded, again feeling inexplicably bothered by the warlock’s presence as he took the book he’d been holding off of him.

“Well, I left your half on the table,” he said idly, taking Shuichi’s seat as the latter got up to leave.

“I’m not hungry,” Shuichi was picking up the way of the liar the longer Kokichi stayed, it seemed. His stomach was actually aching with hunger. He just wanted to be away from the warlock, yet… he felt himself craving his closeness once he’d passed the threshold into the next room.

“Mkay, suit yourself. I’ll eat it later.”

Shuichi stood there for a moment, watching Kokichi sink into a comfortable position from the strange angle through the doorframe. He really did like Kokichi’s company… probably a little too much. Would he want to leave once the pair of them had figured out the secrets of his survival?

He’d felt something tug urgently at his heartstrings at the thought of that. It was an awful sensation. He hated it.

Should he stall it out? Stop bringing things back from the library? He did want to know for himself though, as a detective and all… Maybe he could keep investigating but keep his findings a secret?

He grew ashamed of himself over that last idea. That kind of dishonesty was bound to hurt the sorcerer… And he’d just gotten Kokichi to trust him. He couldn’t do that to him.

Needless to say, it was a restless night for the detective. He was still staring at the ceiling, wide awake when Kokichi tip-toed into the room and into his futon.

As he turned away to face the wall and away from his roommate on the floor, he felt the mind-numbing mental turmoil associated with the stressful first stages of a blossoming crush.

* * *

Shuichi had figured out an excuse to feed Kaede the following morning.

He’d been watching Kokichi nibble at his third poached egg when it occurred to him that the warlock had never even told him his age. It’s not that he could pass for a teenager, but bar security was definitely going to take issue with him.

“I’m almost certain they’ll ask you for ID, with you looking as small as you do and all,” Shuichi said idly as he switched between TV channels and settled for some morning television show. “I’ll think of something to tell Kaede about you having lost yours and we’re probably home free. But… how old even _are_ you? You have to be at least 20, or you have surviving family that are also mages, right? And you’ve already said that isn’t the case…”

Kokichi whistled. “You figured so much out from such little info, wowie~ You really are a Future Foundation detective.” The praise made Shuichi feel… light-headed? “To answer your question, I’m over twenty-five hundred years old. Sorcerers don’t age the way humans do,”

“Is that… so?”

“Nope!” Kokichi could barely contain his laughter before he’d even confirmed the lie. Shuichi felt his cheeks heat up – was it really that fun to make him feel stupid?

He couldn’t even get mad… The mage looked way too happy.

“I am over twenty years old though, you were right about that. Figure out the exact number yourself!” Kokichi took another bite of his breakfast.

_Over twenty, huh…_ Shuichi had figured that was the case, since that’s what the evidence suggested but… Kokichi was so _tiny_. How much does Shuichi have to feed him for him to resemble an average adult male?

Shuichi pulled Kokichi’s left wrist towards him across the kitchen counter, earning a puzzled look from the mage. He wrapped his thumb and forefinger finger around the boy’s wrist and sure enough – his fingers met around the back with a pretty significant area of overlap.

“Whaaat?” Kokichi pulled his arm back, flustered.

“Nothing…” He was just so itsy-bitsy. Shuichi wanted to squeeze him…

He caught himself, and swat the urge dead against the wall.

Shuichi found himself leaving for work a little earlier that day because of that.

He’d just walked from one headache into another, though. The entire office was talking about how they didn’t know Shuichi had a boyfriend, or even that he was into men. Rantaro had reiterated a number of times by 10 o’clock that he’d “thought so”, whatever the hell that meant.

That was a mild headache that disappeared with a little water though. The headache that required painkillers was brought on by Shuichi’s conversation with Kaede a little later in the day.

“He must’ve moved in recently—”

“Yeah, I’m thinkin’ like within the last month or so.”  
  


“Uh-huh, ‘cause I slept over some time last month when snow was screwing up all the roads.”

Rantaro and Kaito were talking over each other as the pair of them leaned against the reception counter that Kaede was minding. Shuichi had been called over, which was a command from Kaito that he reluctantly obeyed.

“Yeah, he moved in about a fortnight ago,” Shuichi said. He technically wasn’t lying, which was something about the whole situation that Shuichi could finally find a little amusing. “Which reminds me Kaede, I’m really sorry but it looks like my… boyfriend lost his ID during the move. And you saw how he’s a little on the small side so we’re a bit worried about bar security—”

“Whazzat? Pooichi’s into shotas?” Miu’s obnoxiously loud voice made her presence at the photocopier by the reception counter known.

“…Can we help you?” Shuichi deadpanned, earning a squeak from the woman.

“Wh-what? Why can’t I talk about Pooichi’s boy-toy too…?”

“Of course you can… Don’t be horrible, Shuichi.” Kaede chided, moving to put a hand on Miu’s shoulder.

…Shuichi was going to choose to ignore that.

“Anyway it doesn’t look like we can come. Sorry about that.” Shuichi was ready to bow out of the conversation before Kaito grabbed him by the arm.

“You’re always in such a rush these days man,”

“I know, it sucks.” Rantaro added, helping himself to a candy cane from a jar that Kaede had been keeping on her desk since Christmas. “We haven’t really seen you in a while.”

“He probably sexts the new shota boy all day in his office…” Miu said under her breath, which made Shuichi clench his teeth.

“You know, I feel like _that’s_ all the reason I need to not come,” Shuichi snapped, turning on heel and beginning to leave before he was stopped _again_. Genuinely annoyed, he shook Kaito’s grip off of his arm.

“Be quiet, Miu.” Kaede scolded, eliciting a yelp from the girl and prompting her to scurry away. “That’s fine, Shuichi – I think we can pool some money and buy drinks in bottles instead and relocate the party to uhhh… here? We have Tsumugi’s empty apartment! We just really want you two there, honestly. I’ll make sure Miu doesn’t say anything inappropriate while he’s there.”

Shuichi’s eyes met two pairs of purple and Rantaro’s emerald.

He sighed.

“Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a few regrets about chapter structuring HAHA but there's nothing i can do about it now! i suppose it doesn't matter when you read it all at once anyway. a lot happens in this 4.3k word chapter, it took me a little while and some parts of it were challenging but i think i mostly had a blast writing it
> 
> i hope the european writing style isn't too jarring btw, and i don't just mean spellings and such. i didn't mean for its influence to show in this fic but i was born and raised here so it was hard to suppress!
> 
> as usual i really appreciate comments and kudos! i get around to replying to every comment before the next update every time and they're seriously really good for getting me to spend more time writing over gaming honestly hahaskjghdfk help me out if you can!


	7. "Shumai"

That was how Shuichi had found himself with a purple-eyed Kokichi in his passenger seat outside of Kyoko Kirigiri’s detective agency later that evening.

They were a little early – Shuichi’s nerves wouldn’t let him sit still – but from the looks of the texts Shuichi had been receiving from his co-workers for the past 20 minutes or so, it appeared that everyone had already gathered. Yet, Shuichi still had no intention of going in until he had to.

The pair were perched stiffly in Shuichi’s car, both of them evidently anxious but one making far less of an attempt to hide it than the other.

“Um, Kokichi… if you get worried or hungry or… anything like that, you can just let me know and I’ll… get us out. I mean I know I promised to do that this morning and it didn’t work but honestly they can’t stop me from just walking out if we have to and I’ll deal with the consequences later but—”

“You’re projecting, beloved detective. I’m not worried at all.” It was a pretty convincing act, but Shuichi was a detective. The conscious effort going into making his voice sound calm was making it sound _too_ small and therefore cautious and unconfident. Perhaps even… frightened.

“Even so, I think while we’re waiting… You were behaving really strangely yesterday when we were shopping, and I was a little worried. I’d like to assume you trust me already but in case you don’t, I think it’s worth me saying… if you’re ever anxious or uncomfortable about anything, you can tell me. Even if I can’t help… sometimes it’s nice to rely on people.”

Shuichi had been gripping the steering wheel in front of him the entire time, with enough tension in his hands to turn his knuckles white in the pale half-light of the streetlamps around them.

He heard Kokichi giggle beside him. “You don’t need to tell me. I already rely on you – I rely on you for food, I rely on you for clothes, I rely on you to not sell me out to your Future Foundation friends…” Kokichi didn’t meet Shuichi’s gaze when he looked up at him, instead opting to look out of the window into the darkness of evening.

Shuichi supposed he could still sympathise with Kokichi’s fear and lack of trust, especially after what he had seen yesterday. He was certain he hadn’t uncovered even a fraction of what the mage had gone through, and wasn’t sure if he ever will; while discovering an inconsistency in history was something within Shuichi’s line of work as a detective with the Future Foundation and therefore something he felt was completely appropriate and acceptable to do, prying into Kokichi’s personal trauma was something he had grown to understand wasn’t okay, and he wasn’t entitled to invading his newfound roommate’s privacy just because he was a detective.

With all that said, he found himself still longing to know about what Kokichi had been through. He wanted to understand the warlock, inside-out, through and through… He wanted to know everything there was to know about the enigma named Kokichi Ouma.

“What about you, though? You honestly look like you could do with relying on someone. If you really don’t have anyone, then I _suppose_ I could lend an ear.” Kokichi was still facing away from Shuichi when his voice pulled him out of his thoughts, but the detective caught the slight reddening of his ears. “Do you get it? I’m saying you can rely on me too.”

An awkward silence ensued as the pair of them grew embarrassed.

“Y-you know,” Shuichi began, in a semi-desperate attempted to break the aforementioned awkward silence. “If you had waited literally two more seconds back then, I would’ve just said you were a cousin or something and you wouldn’t be in this position.”

“I’m sorry!” Kokichi blurted, embarrassed. Shuichi had found that the smallest of sincere gestures were overwhelming for the smitten detective, since he was so used to the smaller boy’s stoicism and impersonal demeanour that he had grown reliant on it for the tiniest of exchanges to even be possible lately.

Which is why Shuichi felt his heart squeeze when Kokichi looked back at him, his face bright red and his hands pulling at the seatbelt across his frame.

“She was looking at me as if she was expecting me to introduce myself and I panicked! It was the first thing that came to mind!”

Shuichi felt himself flush. “Wh-what do you mean it was the _first thing that came to mind_?”

Kokichi sunk further into his seat. “W-well…! You insisted on holding me the entire time and you were squeezing my arm and stuff…” For some reason, Shuichi felt himself go into fight-or-flight. His heart was racing and his trousers where his palms were resting were beginning to dampen with sweat. “It just…! Reallyfeltlikewewereonadate or something!”

Shuichi let out nervous laughter. “Kokichi, you know that’s ridiculous right?” His hands tensed into fists. His heart was racing and his mouth was on auto-pilot. “You’ve been living away from civilisation for over a decade or two, so I don’t blame you for not knowing… how a friend behaves. What’s more…” Shuichi paused when he heard the smallest voice break, and swallowed the growing lump in his throat. This answer seemed like the logical one, yet it felt so, so awfully _incorrect_.

He just couldn’t understand it. Kokichi confused him beyond belief – every single thing about him was another mystery, and the way Shuichi was made to feel in his presence was just another one on the list.

Shuichi took a deep breath and composed himself as much as his fragmented mind would allow. “What’s more is that you were running off every few minutes. It was either that, or put you on some kind of leash.” Shuichi hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at Kokichi that entire time, and had chosen to inspect the material on his steering wheel instead. He’d decided to look up at him at that moment though, and had never felt such palpable instant regret before in his life.

The warlock’s eyebrows were drawn together in something that looked like confusion or hurt, as if Shuichi had betrayed him – which the detective figured was impossible, considering you can’t betray someone who has never given you their trust.

Which is why he settled on reading the boy’s poorly-veiled expression as simply confused.

“Y-yes, I know that, Detective. Are you projecting again?” Kokichi laughed, but it was hollow and devoid of sincerity. If anything, Shuichi thought he heard pain. But that didn’t make sense…

“You don’t need to tell me this, I was just saying… how I thought it might’ve looked.” The warlock continued. “I know it wasn’t like that.”

Shuichi rested his forehead on the steering wheel. He felt a headache coming on, and he hadn’t even seen the alcohol yet. “…Do you just wanna go in now? There probably won’t be much food. How long do you think you can go for?”

“Three to four hours,” Kokichi answered. “I ate like three bananas right before we left on top of everything else. I should be fine.”

Shuichi recalled the obscene amount of cooking he had done between coming home from work and getting ready for the party for Kokichi to eat before and after the event, but said boy had eaten both portions in the time Shuichi had taken to change into casual clothes. He sighed at the thought of having to order pizza or something similar if the warlock worked his magic until hunger by the time they got home.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

In three swift movements, Shuichi had removed his seatbelt, opened the car door and closed it behind him.

“U-um! Wait, before we go in…” Kokichi stammered as he fumbled out of Shuichi’s car with far less fluency than the detective. He’d almost forgotten the extent to which Kokichi didn’t really know how to do things, and that he should be remaining patient but… the inexplicable anxiety the sorcerer gave him was really starting to wear him down.

He _wanted_ to make Kokichi happy and comfortable around him but at the same time he wanted Kokichi to stay far away from him. It was tearing him apart.

Shuichi didn’t even know what to think about how it wasn’t the even fact that Kokichi was a _sorcerer_ that stressed him out. It was… something else.

“It’ll look suspicious if we don’t— uh… act like a couple.” Kokichi drew a deep breath before speaking again. “We should hold hands. Or something like that. Like, just linking pinkies might be okay if you have sweaty incel palms. That might be best actually, I don’t want your grubby hands all over me.”

“Wh—!! I’m not some dirty, unhygienic person, Kokichi! How horrible. Yeah, we’re gonna hold hands!” Shuichi had said that far too confidently, distracted by how insulted he’d felt from Kokichi’s teasing. It earned him a squeak of surprise from Kokichi before he awkwardly jogged up to him from around the car and put his hand out, shoulders tense and eyes averted from the detective.

Shuichi grabbed it, trying to make it seem as casual and impersonal as possible as the pair walked up to the doorstep, but he learned _very_ quickly that he couldn’t ignore the feeling of Kokichi’s small hand in his. It was cold… which made sense, since he refused to wear anything but those three pieces of clothing he’d bought multiples of yesterday. He declined Shuichi’s offer of buying him a coat, saying he would keep himself warm with magic.

Looked like that was a lie.

The sight the pair of them were greeted with after Shuichi had scanned his ID card at the front door and showed the plum-haired boy upstairs was seriously one of a kind.

Tsumugi and her fiance were already drunk off their faces and just… making out on the sofa. Kirumi, Angie and Ryoma were at the kitchen counter where the alcohol was, and the remaining eleven or so attendees were huddled around the TV.

Shuichi had begun to make a beeline for the alcohol at Kirumi’s elbow as she leaned against the tabletop idly before Kokichi’s small hands tugged at his sleeve.

“I can’t drive,” Kokichi whispered as Kaede took notice of the pair of them from across the room. “Well, I _could_ but I don’t think you would want me to.”

Shuichi should’ve had the foresight but still felt gravely betrayed by the gods for the fact that he had to go through this evening sober.

“Oh, Shuichi! Shuichi, over here.” Shuichi’s blonde co-worker gestured from the TV and once the pair of them had gotten closer, the reason why the TV seemed to be the main attraction of the party became apparent.

Everyone was playing Mario Kart, with Rantaro, Korekiyo, Tenko and Kaito racing at that moment.

Ah, so it was _this_ kind of party.

“Bottom two give Shuichi and his boyfriend the controller!” Kaede demanded, handing Shuichi a warm pizza box which the detective and undoubtedly the warlock beside him were happier to see than they let on. “Saved one for you two!”

“Heeeeeeeey, keep it down!” Tsumugi slurred from her seat in her fiance’s lap. “You’re disrupting— oh!” _She_ was ironically “disrupted” from finishing her sentence at that moment by another kiss that made the detective put a hand over Kokichi’s eyes.

“God, you two are a cringefest. I thought Pooichi and his shota boytoy was going to be the centre of attention today,” Miu said, reaching for the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table the four players were sat behind.

“Move, your tits are in the way!” Tenko cried when Miu obstructed her view of the screen with said… tits.

“Sh-shota?” Kokichi repeated after her. He looked to Shuichi for answers, but the detective just shook his head as though to say _ignore her_. “What the hell does that mean?” He assertively asked her instead, making Shuichi facepalm immediately.

“Eeek!!” Miu squawked. _And so it begins_. “I-I mean…! You’re so tiny I can’t help but think Pooichi has some kinda dominance fetish for control over small things…” Shuichi felt his blood pressure rise.

“Oh,” Kokichi snorted. “I dunno, you might be right.” He shrugged casually, shooting Shuichi a playful grin before moving from his side to get a closer look at the screen.

_That little shit…_ Shuichi took a deep breath. He figured Kokichi would have to get along with his co-workers to make these entirely unnatural circumstances seem natural, even if it happened a little at Shuichi’s expense. He plastered a forced smile onto his face, which Kaede seemed to see through at once.

“Quit it, Miu. You’re gonna make Shuichi mad again.” Kaede scolded from her seat on the sofa behind Rantaro, who was perched cross-legged on the floor.

“Whoever threw that blue shell, your mum’s a hoe,” said Kaito angrily as he finished 6th place.

His controller went to Kokichi, and Tenko’s went to Shuichi. The pair of them took their places after having put the pizza box down (Shuichi had placed it closer to Kokichi than himself since he figured the warlock would need it more than him – despite the fact that he hadn’t been eating properly for three or four days now).

Shuichi quickly assessed the positions of his opponents. Rantaro had been second place and Korekiyo was an unlikely 1st place.

“Kiyo… why are you so good at this?” Shuichi had asked as his kart burnt out at the start while Kiyo and Kokichi got the full boost. He wasn’t too surprised with Kokichi’s timing on it, considering he had probably clocked a solid 70 hours playing games on Shuichi’s console the past week alone while said detective was at work, but he figured Kiyo was an unlikely candidate for Best Gamer of Kirigiri’s Detective Agency.

“Indeed, playing video games has helped me come closer to understanding subcultures associated with them.”

He supposed that made a little more sense – Korekiyo worked full time but was also working towards a masters in anthropology, with his studies and work schedule both being fully supported by the Future Foundation. His interests in people, their behaviours and cultures made him a unique asset to the agency in ways Shuichi could only dream of becoming.

Kokichi came first place by miles.

The warlock had been taunting Shuichi throughout the race by slowing down and letting Korekiyo overtake him just to throw fire balls or green shells behind him, targetting the dark-haired detective specifically, before reclaiming his first place position again. It also helped him avoid blue shells by letting Korekiyo eat them instead. It was something the anthropology student commented on, playfully calling Kokichi “quite the insufferable little pest”.

Kokichi’s Mario Kart antics earned him a small fanbase among Shuichi’s co-workers, who figured seeing how he would tease everyone next made the game entertaining several times over. Shuichi had surrendered his controller at some point letting it bounce between Kaito, Maki and Rantaro.

It became apparent a few races into the party that those three plus Korekiyo, Kokichi and Shuichi himself were the only ones that planned on staying sober. The audience began to wittle down as everyone became increasingly drunk and distracted, especially with more people arriving from other branches of the Future Foundation’s agencies.

Kaede, Miu, Tenko and four other girls that Shuichi vaguely recognised from one meeting months ago with Byakuya Togami’s global finance analytics agency were sat in a circle around Tsumugi’s old kotatsu seemingly playing a drinking game, and the group at the kitchen counter by the alcohol bottles had gotten bigger by several people from lord knows where. Shuichi squinted, and took note of the fact that Kirumi had passed out on the countertop.

It was getting loud and packed, and the anxiety demanded that Shuichi busied himself with that pizza Kaede had given him before it got cold. He’d offered the last slice to Kokichi who was too immersed in competition with Shuichi’s co-workers to answer him. He took it as a _no_ and helped himself.

At one point, Kokichi and Kaito had gotten into a squabble over one controller.

“Dammit you pint sized bastard, it’s Maki Roll’s turn!” Kaito’s voice boomed as Shuichi absentmindedly took another bite of his pizza.

“Your precious _Maki Roll_ isn’t nearly as fun to bully with fire balls as _Shumai_ is!” Kokichi yelled back, earning Shuichi’s attention.

“Who the hell is _Shumai_?” Rantaro hollered from his end of the coffee table, pulling a face of disbelief in Shuichi’s direction when the two detectives made eye contact.

A wave of sticky humidity washed over Shuichi as he felt himself flush. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the nickname (there was no need to overthink it anyway, it was pretty much almost definitely a parody of “Maki Roll” which Shuichi would agree was a cheesy nickname), but their quarrel was tiresome.

“I don’t want to play, Kokichi. I’ll just watch. Let Maki have the controller,” he’d said, taking another bite of his pizza. “And maybe don’t call me that…”

The last part seemed to go unheard.

Yet _another_ group arrived by the time Shuichi had finished his pizza. Kokichi was on his 10th consecutive race or so, having come first place every single time.

It was seriously beginning to become claustrophobic, and the knowledge of the fact that Kokichi’s spell would wear off and expose the two of them whenever he ran out of energy was doing nothing to help his nerves. He’d been focussed on the video game in front of him while also socialising with four of Shuichi’s peers _and_ maintaining the spell on his eyes all at the same time, and although it wasn’t like the detective would know and that’s why he should probably just trust the warlock with his estimates, Shuichi just wasn’t convinced that one meal from earlier that evening was enough to see the two of them through this party.

It was probably anxiety speaking since he of all people would know just how large that meal was since _he_ was the one that had slaved away in the kitchen making it, but honestly – who wouldn’t be anxious in a situation like this?

He shuffled closer to where Kokichi was sitting on the ground, ready to pounce whenever the race finished so he could pull the boy away from the group at least for a break if not to leave it at that for the night.

Kokichi and Korekiyo were neck-and-neck for the first time in four or five races, with those four or five races having been completely dominated by the purple haired boy.

It was close right to the end of the match. Kokichi had passed the finish line by the skin of his teeth, after tailgating Korekiyo’s kart for the necessary speed boost to overtake him and outspeeding an approaching blue shell before throwing his hands in the air in celebration and…

…hitting Shuichi square in the face.

Shuichi’s face went cold from the impact before the sensation of warm wetness followed. He’d heard a collective _oh shit_ from Rantaro and Kaito as he brought his hands up and held where he knew blood was running from his nose.

Rantaro had gotten up to fetch paper towels from beside an unconscious Kirumi before handing them to Kaito who was kneeling in front of him, trying to assess the damage. Shuichi awkwardly pushed him away with the back of his hand, trying not to get blood on him, in order to get some breathing space.

In the middle of that gesture, he’d spotted _just how much blood_ was staining his hands, and he felt himself panic a little as Kaito opted to offer him the retrieved paper towels from the distance Shuichi was demanding from him.

“A-are you okay?” Came Kokichi’s small voice as Shuichi discarded the first few bloodied paper towels and pressed a fresh set to his face. He didn’t answer – he didn’t _want_ to answer or even really look at the warlock right now.

At some point, Kaede had noticed the concerned crowd around Shuichi and separated from the girls she was sitting with to investigate, gasping in surprise upon the sight of Shuichi.

So he imagined he must’ve looked pretty bad.

The temperature of the room seemed to be rising. Although it was just the group at the TV and Kaede now, it felt like everyone was staring. He felt embarrassed, and suffocated, and frustrated – so, _so_ frustrated; he needed an _outlet_ – he so desperately needed some kind of release from the torrent of emotion within him as it burst from a bottle he didn’t realise he’d been filling for the past few days, so he turned towards Kokichi with his knuckles white from the tension in his fists and…

…he paused.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do or say in that moment blinded by rage, but one look at Kokichi’s face and his resolve evaporated.

Shuichi was mad, definitely – nothing seemed to be going his way for a few days now and the fact that his brain seemed to be bleeding out of his nose after the cause of all this frustration hit him in the face was just the cherry on top but… Even with the tears that had sprung to his eyes from the strike blurring his vision, the sight of Kokichi next to him was still so _comforting_ instead of maddening like it _should’ve_ been.

“I’m gonna go back to the car,” Shuichi told Kaede, and for once in the last few days, she didn’t get in his way.

“Sh-Shuichi, wait!” Kokichi called as the detective got up and left. “Wait for me! I’m really sorry…”

He was breathless by the time he’d reached the car, with Shuichi having not slowed down for the smaller boy.

“It’s fine, it was an accident.” Shuichi said, not slowing down still as he slid into his car and hastily pulled his seatbelt across his body.

Shuichi had turned the keys as soon as Kokichi had clumsily climbed into the passenger seat next to him, and felt the rage within him finally bubble over when the engine stalled.

It was no use. The universe had it out for him.

He finally gave in to the overwhelming urge to just… cry.

“I can- I can stop it from hurting, if you let me see…” Kokichi said gently, reaching out for his face. Shuichi swat his hands away with the free hand that wasn’t pressing a paper towel already saturated with blood and tears to his face.

The look on Kokichi’s face when he’d done that just made Shuichi’s sinking heart break a little more.

“…C’mon Shuichi you don’t have to cry about—”

“Just be quiet,” Shuichi said, without moving the paper towels from his face. “For once in your life since coming here, be quiet.” He saw Kokichi flinch in his peripheral vision and felt rotten all over again.

Shuichi sighed. “…No, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault – it was an accident. I shouldn’t… talk to you like that. I’ve been feeling terrible lately, but I… I don’t want to take it out on you. I’m sorry.” _Though, you do treat me a lot worse_ , were Shuichi’s unvoiced thoughts. He sniffled, and almost gagged when he tasted blood.

“Do… do you want a hug?” Kokichi asked tentatively, becoming visibly nervous when Shuichi turned to look at him. “I-I mean… When I don’t feel too good, I go and get hugs from you so… I figured offering to return the favour is the… right thing to do?”

_Kokichi… asks for a hug_ every day _, though._ It took a minute for him to register what that meant. And then the detective felt his heart ache.

Kokichi seemed to take Shuichi’s pondering silence as a rejection, because the detective noted how his shoulders were beginning to droop.

“S-sure…” He managed to stutter out, making Kokichi snap back to attention again.

The hug was… pretty awkward. The two of them had to reach uncomfortably and paired with the fact that Kokichi was small and the fact that the car’s architecture just was not co-operating, there was a lot of space between the two of them in the hug.

So it wasn’t particularly the warmest or most comfortable of hugs and yet… Shuichi felt a rush of electrifying tenderness and comfort course through him. The last few tears that had been running down his face in silver threads met the black fabric of Kokichi’s sweater and ceased to flow in a way that almost felt unnatural. Shuichi pulled away when he felt as though he was about to get blood on the warlock, but said warlock didn’t seem nearly as concerned.

“…There.” Kokichi pinched Shuichi’s nose affectionately as he released the hug, and the gesture puzzled the detective for a minute because he wanted to swat at Kokichi’s hands to protect whichever damaged nerves were causing him so much pain before he realised that… the pain wasn’t there anymore.

“Wh-what?” Shuichi touched his face where it had been bleeding heavily just a moment ago and sure enough – no blood, no pain. Shuichi placed both of his hands on either side of his face. There weren’t even any tears left – his face was completely dry and clean.

“It’s like it never even happened! Nee-hee-hee. So, don’t cry anymore.”

Shuichi attention returned to the sorcerer to see that the purple of his eyes, tired with overexertion, was reddening to a brownish burgundy colour that were sure to return to bright crimson soon.

“Glad I had just the right amount of energy left for that spell,” Kokichi yawned. “Had to cut the rest of the time off my illusion spell though. I must’ve hit you pretty hard.” He laughed tiredly and closed his eyes.

As the warlock slept soundly beside him during the drive home and as Shuichi carried him out of the car and into his room once they had arrived, the detective finally came to terms with what had been staring him in the face for the past few days.

He was completely, and utterly infatuated with Kokichi Ouma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is probably the fastest i've written yet (considering word count too) and also wasn't in the original draft at all, but i decided i needed shuichi to melt down in some way before we progress HOHO
> 
> imagine being kokichi and finding out that some of the scariest people to you are dorks that not only play mario kart at parties but also LOSE to you
> 
> let it be known that the word doc i'm writing this fic on has his over 50 pages. never knew i had it in me.
> 
> heads up that by the next update, this fic is (probably) going to be renamed 'Unextinguished Embers'!


	8. Dreaming of a Drowning Detective

The first thing Kokichi registered once he’d stirred from his slumber was the unbearably _agonising_ ache in his stomach.

He let out a low whine that reached no-one as he curled up into fetal position in a desperate attempt to quell the angry hunger eating up at his insides. When that turned out to be futile, he opted to crawl out of his futon in search of food.

He didn’t get very far in the darkness of 4 o’clock in the morning, however. Not only was it cold as fuck outside the embrace of that _really_ cosy futon set Shuichi had been letting him borrow, he was also insanely disoriented from the hunger and pain. There was a thud and a throbbing pain in his skull, and it took a minute for him to understand he’d crawled straight into Shuichi’s dresser.

“Owww…” Kokichi belatedly held his head where impact was made when his remaining energy let him, and turned back towards the direction of his futon.

What even happened? Why was he this hungry? What was so important that Kokichi decided he would exert himself this much? He faceplanted back onto his pillow, fighting off the brain fog and the tears that had reflexively gathered in his eyes from the pain up and down his body in order to recall what had happened the day prior.

The first thing he recalled was… a mop of pale green hair. Pale green hair, warm eyes, a warmer smile, even warmer life force – like the sun and air at a tropical resort… What was his name? Kokichi didn’t remember, but he remembered the next face. A girl with an annoying voice – again, he didn’t remember the name or even the life force this time but the phrase “degenerate male” stood out to him for a moment for some reason. Next, blonde hair, violet eyes, melodic laughter…

Oh. Kokichi remembered now. These were Shuichi’s friends. Kokichi felt his forehead crease with annoyance as it came flooding back. Two nights ago, he’d fumbled with his words in the stupidest and most embarrassing way and set himself and Shuichi up for the inconvenience that was trying to make his bad lie believable by being the detective’s date to a party with those Future Foundation bastards.

He remembered the green freak’s name now. Rantaro Amami. He also remembered how upset he was at the thought of that guacamole bastard having Shuichi’s hours and attention five days a week at work while Kokichi had to sit around and kill time. And the other guy, as well. Kaito Momota. Seriously! He had a pair of functioning eyes too… Sorcery-enhanced, at that. He could _see_ how handsome those two were. And it made him inexplicably mad. They had no right to look the way they did, and they had a negative number of rights to be wandering around where Shuichi could see them when they looked like that.

While he was on the topic of Shuichi’s attention, there was something else that Kokichi remembered that was bothering him. He had been _right there_ – albeit he was busy flexing his Mario Kart skills, but he wouldn’t have popped off that hard if Shuichi wasn’t watching. There wasn’t much else Kokichi could impress him with so the least Shuichi could do was pay a little more attention and watch him… But every time Shuichi had opened his mouth or even looked up from that pizza of his, it was either to address something either of _them_ said.

Kokichi huffed, and turned onto his side. _God dammit Shuichi… you were supposed to be pretending you’re_ my _boyfriend. Why was your attention over there the entire time?_

He should’ve feasted on their life force when he had the chance. There’d be no competition then. That way, the detective would have no choice but to only look at him…

…Nah. Kokichi was honestly a pacifist. No-one should have to experience what he did – not even Future Foundation employees and certainly not Shuichi.

It would probably frighten Shuichi too… and there wasn’t a lot Kokichi was certain of, but he was sure he didn’t want to do _that_ , or cause the detective any more trouble than he had already.

Kokichi was getting distracted. He still didn’t know why he’d exerted himself to starvation. Focussing on the sequence of events of last night, he tried to push the thought of Shuichi to the back of his mind. He vaguely remembered being nervous enough to perform a stronger illusion spell on his eyes than usual, but he’d also kept it weak enough to make sure he could keep going for enough hours with the food Shuichi had made for him considered… So that didn’t make sense.

This is boring. He wants to think about Shuichi again.

So he did. He thought about his smile, his cooking, his scent, his embrace… It feels nice to think about Shuichi. Warm and fuzzy…

Oh.

_Oh._

That’s right.

Kokichi shot up in his bedding.

The reason why he was in so much pain was because… He’d hurt Shuichi bad enough to make him bleed and cry.

And he’d then spent the rest of everything he had fixing the trouble he’d caused.

Kokichi remembered now. He remembered, and he became mind-numbingly irritated with himself. He’d seriously only been causing trouble for the detective from the very start, and the only thing he can do about it is try to laugh it off and make everything look like a joke.

He brought his knees up to his chest and held them there before turning to look at where Shuichi laid asleep in his bed beside Kokichi’s own makeshift bed on the floor.

Moonlight through the gap in the curtains behind his sleeping form illuminated the part of Shuichi’s face visible from the floor and for a minute, Kokichi could forget about the searing sensation in his core.

The pain seemed to travel to his chest instead, where it gripped at his heart and lungs.

Despite his affiliations to the Future Foundation and despite how clumsy and awkward the man was, Kokichi had really begun to appreciate how patient and generous Shuichi had been. He was risking a lot – it took Kokichi a long time to recognise the full extent of what he had been showing he was willing to sacrifice. He’d initially figured it was just his career; a bad career with a shitty organisation that only came to fruition by slaughtering Kokichi’s kind after indoctrinating half the population with the narrative that sorcery was dangerous just because Junko Enoshima was. In a way, Kokichi was sort of naïve with that thinking. He was naïve to think that Shuichi was untouchable because he was hand-selected by Kyoko Kirigiri. The degree of hostility towards sorcerers in the texts Shuichi had been studying so religiously for Kokichi’s sake made him realise just how _much_ the world hated him and his kind, and just how _far_ people were willing to go to ensure sorcery was sealed away in extinction forever.

Shuichi likely would be losing a lot more than just his stupid career if he was found to have been protecting a warlock.

Kokichi thought he understood his circumstances – considering he was the last survivor and all – but maybe he’d been spoiled by the detective’s kindness and lost a lot of perspective. Because he’d certainly had a wake-up call in the last two weeks.

How simple his life would’ve been had he never been born with the curse of sorcery. How simple his life would’ve been if he could just cry the colour out of his eyes. Even though Kokichi was a pacifist and even though he never considered ever toying with people’s life force, he couldn’t help but grow to hate the part of him he shared with Junko Enoshima. And he couldn’t help but believe what was written in a lot of those books about him and his kind being inherently dangerous – he really just couldn’t.

It made him wonder what Shuichi thought. If Kokichi couldn’t even trust himself… _Stop. Stop right there._

He swallowed the lump forming in his throat and began to blink back tears.

It was painful. The thought of Shuichi hating him was so painful. So, so painful. God. _God_ , if Shuichi was any more merciful, he would just let Kokichi die already.

…He didn’t want to think anymore. He wanted to be close to Shuichi.

He rubbed the tears from his eyes and shimmied over on his knees to Shuichi’s bedside and rested his chin on his mattress. The detective looked so… tired. And beautiful – strikingly beautiful, but tired. Dark semi-circles stained his face under his closed eyes, his hair was a complete mess and there was a damp spot of drool where his duvet met his chin and yet… Kokichi never wanted to look away.

_…It was Kokichi’s fault, wasn’t it? It was his fault Shuichi was so tired and miserable lately._

Dammit. He wished he could switch off his brain.

The ache in Kokichi’s stomach began to make itself known again. He shifted uncomfortably and squeezed his eyes shut when the world around him spun.

Just focus on Shuichi. Focus on how pretty he is.

Kokichi’s favourite thing about Shuichi was definitely his eyes. _It was ironic that Kokichi’s own eyes were arguably his ugliest feature._ It was the first thing Kokichi had noticed about him that day in the forest. The detective had long top _and_ bottom eyelashes, and they were shaped in way that reminded Kokichi of butterfly wings. _It hurts._ And you couldn’t see it right now but the colour wasn’t too shabby either. _It hurts._ They were off-grey with a yellowish tint that seemed to become accentuated into bright golden sparkles by the afternoon sunlight Shuichi was bathed in when he came home from work. _I’m tired._ Golden… _Flip the switch and press reset on your aching feelings and broken heart~!_ Golden just like his personality, like his laughter and like his heart. _Shuichi, please…_ Kokichi’s eyes fell to his lips when his head began to loll to the side, too exhausted to stay upright.

They were so pink, like cherry blossoms in spring…

_Help me. I don’t want to hide anymore._

Kokichi wondered how they would feel against his. _It hurts._

_It hurts._

…Should he ask Shuichi for help? It would be kind of funny to wake Shuichi up by pinching his nose until whatever panic mechanism associated with oxygen deprivation kicked in as a preface to his food demands, Kokichi thought. He began to giggle, but stopped when the pain in his stomach spiked.

What right did he have to give orders anymore anyway? This suffering was his just reward for being such a nuisance, an inconvenience, a burden… _He’s tired. Leave him alone._

Though, just as he was about to turn and leave Shuichi’s bedside for his futon to try to sleep through the pain, he’d heard a soft whimper from Shuichi’s direction. Kokichi turned back towards him, just to find that the peaceful expression that had been on Shuichi’s face a moment ago was ruined by the creases of a frown on his forehead. The detective seemed to be cowering into his bedsheets in a way that made Kokichi’s heart ache to see.

Was he… having a nightmare? Ignoring the pain tearing through him, he scooted closer to the detective again, took a deep breath and channelled his remaining magical energy into his eyes to confirm his suspicions with Shuichi’s life force. He caught himself from toppling over when the weak spell he’d only been able to maintain for a fraction of a second wore off, but it was all the time he needed to see that Shuichi’s quivering pale blue life energy was indeed being tormented by _something_ and since there was no other stimuli, Kokichi could deduce that it was most likely a nightmare.

He supposed this was a better reason to wake Shuichi up. As he reached out though, he caught sight of the dark circles under the detective’s eyes again and paused.

…There _was_ another way. It was an arcane technique called “dream eating”, and he’d only done it once or twice before to pull pranks on his brother when he had been alive. He had always figured it was one of his more useless skills especially during the time he’d been living on his own, but praise the heavens if he could be helpful to Shuichi for once in the entire time he had spent here with this useless skill of his.

Kokichi gathered a dime sized amount of his wine-coloured, plum-scented and velvet-textured life force into the palm of his hand. It represented about a year or two of his lifespan.

He was beyond spent so using aether wasn’t an option. It would be fine, as long as he didn’t make a habit of it… A good night’s sleep for Shuichi was more valuable to Kokichi than a year of his life anyway.

…So why was he hesitating? He’d never performed sorcery using his own life force before so he had a full lifetime’s worth of life force to pick at whenever he felt like it. It was just a year or two, nothing major. It’s not like he’s going to be this exhausted on a regular basis… It’s just an one-off.

With all that said, it was still just so _frightening_ to see the energy melt and dissolve before his irises began to warm and glow with its power.

As Kokichi closed his eyes and entered Shuichi’s subconscious, he remembered the time the detective had so decisively and bravely surrendered two years off of his own life to get the pair of them out of Snowcrest Forests that fateful day. Was there an end to Shuichi’s valour and heroism?

Kokichi wondered if he could ever understand the full scope of his dazzling brilliance.

The purple of Kokichi’s life force slipped through Shuichi’s protective blue barrier and Kokichi got to work immediately.

Despite its name, dream eating involved neither viewing dreams nor eating them. Not in much of a literal sense at least.

Dream eating was about a sorcerer’s magic latching onto a certain energy generated by life force in the subconscious and “eating” it – as in, tearing it apart, digesting it and breaking it down in order to neutralise its influence. With the its base elements, the sorcerer can then recreate a different kind of energy in the subconscious, thus manipulating the kind of experience the dreamer was having.

The effect of dream eating would remain until the energy the life force harnessed naturally shifted depending on the dreamer’s waking experiences. A sorcerer in the subconscious of a person living a very happy life would find that the quality of the energy conjured there was deteriorating very slowly if at all, whereas a sorcerer in the subconscious of a person living a very stressful life would find that their life force was too worn down and drained to create the energy of fulfillment and pleasure necessary for good dreams.

And stressed Shuichi was _indeed_.

In order to dream eat successfully before creating new energy, a sorcerer would have to find the dreamer in their subconscious plane and release them from whatever restraints their sleeping life force had placed upon them. Sometimes these were just loosely bound vines in the case of someone having a relatively pleasant dream, or an employee stuck in a dead-end job might find themselves cuffed to the wall. That’s the kind of thing he’d expected to see in Shuichi’s case.

But there were technically no restraints on Shuichi. Once he entered the pure white room, Kokichi saw that Shuichi was _drowning_ in the horrible energy his tired life force had generated.

Kokichi drifted to the large circular tank Shuichi had sunk to the bottom of. The water was murky, barely transparent and _still_ , eerily still, as if it had already taken all the fight out of Shuichi. _Just how hard did I hit you? How is it possible that your suffering runs this deep?_

Kokichi lowered himself a little closer to the surface of the black water and called out to the detective. He heard, and slowly turned. He looked between Kokichi’s face and his outstretched hand and seemed to just… sit there. He remained sitting there, completely resigned.

Though Kokichi had very little dream eating experience, he had certainly read a lot about it in surviving libraries of former sorcerer settlements that the Future Foundation hadn’t been able to reduce to ruin, and not _once_ had he seen anything like this before.

Well anyway. If Shuichi wasn’t going to come up here, then Kokichi was going to have to go down there.

He retreated to the rim and braced himself for a dive. With one _alley-oop!_ and a splash of water, Kokichi was on his way down to save Shuichi.

The properties of the energy that had manifested in Shuichi’s subconscious as water once again caught Kokichi off-guard. The viscosity was about right, but the _pressure_ was something else. He felt all the oxygen leave his lungs as soon as he had hit the water. It was a good thing he didn’t need oxygen in this plane, and his real body that _did_ need oxygen was still breathing at Shuichi’s bedside, but it still made Kokichi squirm uncomfortably.

He seemed to be swimming downwards towards Shuichi’s form which was turned away from him for what felt like an eternity, with the energy around him screeching and crying into his ears from all directions. He grabbed a hold of Shuichi by the arm and tried to drag him onto his back, but the detective really didn’t want to co-operate it seemed.

_Man. Subconscious Shuichi isn’t nearly as cute as he is in real life._

There was no blushing or smiles, just drooping shoulders and a pair of eyes devoid of any emotion. Even his ahoge wasn’t standing upright anymore.

The weight of the detective, his reluctance to move and the pressure of the water made it impossible for Kokichi’s small frame to make it back to the surface.

Kokichi sighed and watched the resulting air bubbles make their way towards the light.

Well, there’s always more than two ways to release a dreamer from their restraints.

Kokichi dropped Shuichi and swam towards the wall of the tank. He pressed a hand to the glass, and his eyes turned bright scarlet as he forced a crack into the tank.

The crack spread into several that wound its way around the entire circumference of the tank very quickly, and it didn’t take long for the entire thing to shatter into a million sparkling pieces.

With nothing to contain it anymore, the energy spilled across the expanse of the plane.

Kokichi watched as Shuichi stood up on shaking legs, squeezing water from his drenched clothes. Now that he was free of his retraint, the work Kokichi actively had to do was done now. His magic would deal with the rest of the dream eating process.

As Kokichi warped out of Shuichi’s subconscious, he saw the detective turn towards him at the very last second. He managed a grin before he disappeared – even if this Shuichi wasn’t _his_ Shuichi but rather a conjuration of Shuichi’s current mental state, he still wanted to treat _every_ Shuichi to a smile and whatever little else tenderness the warlock had.

Kokichi knew he’d returned to his body when he felt the torturous ache in his stomach.

He crawled back into his futon, with his life force feeling a year or two lighter than it had a few minutes ago.

_A little missing life force, huh… We’re even now, Shumai._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> random unplanned kokichi pov chapter? it's more likely than you think
> 
> this was originally only going to be part of a chapter but at this point my initial draft and plans don't fuckin matter
> 
> hope you enjoyed it! leave comments, kudos, the usual. i love you all
> 
> same day edit: typo fixes since i didn't beta read. i also forgot to say thank you - we hit 100 kudos and 30k words! i'm really happy about that, thank you guys i'm glad you're all enjoying it


	9. Innocence

_May 17 th, the year The Tragedy was ending._

_Shuichi, at the age of 3, had been dropped off at daycare as usual._

_The daycare man had gone to fight in the war, just like Shuichi’s dad._

_The daycare man wasn’t going to come back, just like Shuichi’s dad._

_His wife changed the opening hours to later in the day._

_So when his mother didn’t come to pick him up in the evening, Shuichi had to sit outside for longer overnight until it opened again._

_Shuichi wished he knew where she went, but he knew that heroes are brave because they’re ready to disappear in order to protect hope._

_And his parents were brave heroes indeed._

_So it was okay if his mother didn’t come back for him, as long as she achieved what she had to._

_It was okay to abandon Shuichi._

_The daycare lady said to be proud of them. So he was._

_November 12 th, the year The Tragedy ended._

_Police and paramedics salvaging what they could of Snowcrest found Shuichi outside the daycare._

_He was sent to an orphanage by the sea._

_…He doesn’t want to remember the rest. Wake up… Wake up…_

_Shuichi was too small and frail to win any fights over food._

_So small and frail he stayed._

_It’s a bad dream… a bad dream a baddreambaddreambaddream…_

_Funding went up once what was remaining of Class 78 th started work with the Future Foundation._

_With their help, the government could afford to invest in foster parenting now._

_Nobody wanted Shuichi._

_Kyoko Kirigiri visited the orphanage._

_She left behind a cheque._

_Shuichi was in the sick bay so he couldn’t go see for himself, but he’d heard two kids talking about it as they walked past the door that had been left ajar because its lock didn’t work._

_The cheque sent Shuichi to school._

_Most other kids had started already, but Shuichi had been at the bottom of the spreadsheet._

_They missed his name there._

_They left him out of the budgeting._

_So he couldn’t start until now._

_Thank you, Kyoko._

_I’ll repay you when I get older._

_With my labour, and with my life._

_The floor opened up and Shuichi fell through it. He fell straight into Snowcrest Forests._

_Is… is Kokichi here? He needs… to… kill him. He needs to kill him._

_He needs to kill Kokichi._

_He needs to kill Kokichi._

_He needs to kill Kokichi._

_Shuichi has a pocket knife… He can use that._

_Kokichi is small. He can overpower him easily. He knows where his jugular is._

_He needs to kill Kokichi and take his corpse to Kyoko._

_Where is he?_

_Shuichi turned around to begin his hunt, and was struck down almost immediately._

_Oh, that’s right… the flutter guardian._

_The lance pierced through his spine, punctured his lungs and passed all the way through his chest._

_He heard every single one of his nerves screaming._

_Paralysed by the pain, he was stuck there. Left to bleed out in a pool of his own blood._

_There was so much… He seemed to bleed forever, until he was drowning in it._

_Just as he was about to close his eyes and finally succumb to unconsciousness, Shuichi’s vision rippled before him. The bright red all around him turned to white and very, very briefly Shuichi caught Kokichi’s faded silhouette somewhere ahead of him, in whatever this space was._

_His resolve suddenly shattered, and Shuichi felt the guilt of a thousand crimes weighing down on his heart._

_He began to move towards him, breaking into a sprint when he realised Kokichi was disappearing. There was nothing he wanted to do or say to him, he just… wanted him to stay._

_He doesn’t want to kill Kokichi. He wants to be close to him._

_The ghostly Kokichi had looked toward him at the very last moment and smiled his signature smile, vanishing just as Shuichi had reached out to him._

_The floor then opened up again, and Shuichi had felt peace and comfort like he’d never felt before._

_He opened his eyes, unsure of when he’d squeezed them shut so tightly._

_Was he in… heaven?_

_Did he die?_

_Wispy white clouds were splayed out before him, and Shuichi had been seated in a throne covered in wildflowers under the shade of a huge cherry tree. The trickling sound of a nearby river that sparkled as it flowed and the warm sensation of the sun and a breeze against his skin…_

_It was pleasant but…_

_Kokichi wasn’t here._

_Wake up… Wake up… Wake up and you can see Kokichi._

* * *

Shuichi blinked.

Instinctively, he pulled his duvet over his head when mid-morning light paled from cloud cover filtered through his curtains and greeted him with all its headache-inducing brightness.

Speaking of headaches, even after he’d ducked under his covers, he felt one permeate throughout his skull with a large portion of the pain concentrated on either side of his jaw. He’d phased out of his habit of clenching his teeth in his sleep a few years ago, so he wasn’t sure why the familiar sensation of hammering a nail into his bottom jaw had presented itself that morning.

Did he have a bad dream?

He couldn’t remember it now, but he knew he was feeling the most refreshed and well-rested he had in years so it was probably safe to assume he hadn’t… Maybe it was just an anomalous morning migraine associated with the fact that Shuichi had slept in longer than usual?

What time was it, anyway…?

He felt around for his phone on his bedside table and yanked it under the duvet with him once he’d gotten a grip of it. The screen lit up and on the display read _Saturday 22 nd February, 10:48AM_.

Almost a solid five hours later than when Shuichi normally got up for work.

Five hours…

Shuichi practically threw the covers off as he sat up in his bed.

Kokichi had fallen asleep on an empty stomach last night. He must be starving…

Shuichi looked over at the warlock, the outline of him curling up into himself visible under his futon cover, with his mop of plum hair peeking out of it.

…Had he been cold overnight? Shuichi didn’t think Kokichi was capable of making himself that small.

He tiptoed out of bed and knelt down at Kokichi’s side.

…He was so beautiful. Looking at Kokichi sleeping so peacefully like this triggered the release of a torrent of stress hormones into Shuichi’s system – a sensation that he had grown to become accustomed to the past few days. Shuichi had recently acknowledged that the symptoms of his desperate infatuation with the warlock had a pattern: first came the ache in his chest, then came the colony of butterflies in his stomach. Finally, frustration – at what, Shuichi had yet to completely understand. It seemed to be a crushingly overwhelming combination of everything – he was just mad. At himself, at the circumstances, and at Kokichi.

At himself, because his behaviour and attitude lately was definitely unbecoming of a detective working with the Future Foundation – he was constantly distracted and just… didn’t care, half of the time.

At the circumstances, because there was no easy way to pursue a relationship with Kokichi considering their relative statuses. Not that relationships were ever really easy with Shuichi…

And at Kokichi, because… Well, he wasn’t sure. Kokichi hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t want to be mad at Kokichi for no reason, either – he just _was_.

“…That’s not good enough.” Shuichi murmured to himself, reaching a hand out to move a lock of Kokichi’s purple hair out of his face. Kokichi was innocent in all this. He was innocent of any crimes the state would want to charge him with if they knew he existed, and he was innocent of everything that would warrant Shuichi’s anger. It wasn’t good enough that Shuichi would take it out on Kokichi for his own insecurities.

At some point during Kokichi’s stay, Shuichi became fond of him and developed feelings for him. That’s all it was… There was nothing about that to be afraid of.

…Except maybe… rejection. And the fact that he was a warlock. What if Shuichi’s affections grossed Kokichi out…? Wouldn’t Shuichi be endangering both of their lives if he’d tried to live with Kokichi like normal?

…Now wasn’t the time to get distracted anyway.

“Kokichi… Kokichi, wake up.” Shuichi tentatively put a hand on the warlock’s small shoulder and shook gently.

His eyelashes fluttered before Shuichi saw the red of his irises peek from below his sleep-weighted eyelids.

“Oh… good morning,” Kokichi rasped, straining the last few syllables as if he were in pain. He rolled onto his front and then into a sitting position, greeting Shuichi with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Uh… yeah.” The morning voice threw him off, and Shuichi reverted to having zero chill again. “Um! Are you feeling okay? You used up all your magic last night and passed out and I wasn’t sure if I should wake you up so I just watched you in case you woke up until I fell asleep…” He mentally facepalmed. What was with that wording?! He _watched_ him??

“Aww, my beloved detective is worried about me.” Kokichi’s smile wasn’t wavering and it was starting to creep Shuichi out. “I’m okay, Shumai.” Kokichi drew his futon cover around himself as he spoke, and Shuichi noticed the tremble in his hands.

“You sure? You look pretty ti—” Shuichi didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence when Kokichi passed out straight into Shuichi’s chest.

“Wh… what the hell…?” He’d been awake for a whole 30 seconds… what was the deal with that?

Shuichi felt pretty stupid for trying to wake him up now. Putting him back into his futon, he noticed the warlock skin felt far too cold. It made sense, his futon wasn’t for long-term use and was pretty thin. _Shuichi’s duvet was still warm_ … He pulled it off the side of his bed and placed it over Kokichi’s trembling body.

His shivering seemed to settle. Placated, Shuichi moved in the direction of his kitchen, deciding to ready toast before he brushed his teeth or combed his hair so that Kokichi could fill his stomach sooner. He must’ve been really unwell… Why didn’t he say anything? The warlock had never been particularly shy about making demands for his needs prior to this.

Shuichi had prepared toast, scrambled eggs and milkshake when he’d seen Kokichi stir underneath his two blankets.

“Kokichi, breakfast’s ready,” Shuichi called, earning him Kokichi’s attention. He’d looked confused at the extra weight on him before pulling himself out of the two covers over him and wobbling over close to Shuichi.

“Easy…” Shuichi said, gripping Kokichi’s arm before he’d limply fallen face-first onto the floor.

“Nee-hee-hee… Thanks. I’m a little dizzy, that’s all.”

That’s all…? It certainly didn’t seem like it when Kokichi couldn’t stop shaking long enough to take a sip of his drink without spilling it.

“Kokichi… You honestly shouldn’t have pushed yourself so hard. I can handle a little nosebleed…”

Kokichi didn’t say anything, but seemed to look sad momentarily before scarfing down the scrambled egg in front of him.

“Don’t forget to chew. I won’t be able to help you if you choke…”

Shuichi sighed. It was Saturday, and Shuichi usually had errands to run on Saturdays. Groceries, house maintenance, those kind of mundane things. But after the day he’d had yesterday and looking at the heavy cloud cover outside, he… didn’t really want to go anywhere.

It’d be kind of nice to spend some time with Kokichi today too…

For now though, he supposed he’d return to the research on his case. He doesn’t want Kokichi to get impatient with him after promising to uncover the truth of his case…

“Where are you going~?” Kokichi called as Shuichi turned to leave.

“Gonna try to get through a little more of the archive material,” Shuichi replied. “The sooner we figure it out, the sooner you can—”

Shuichi trailed off. The sooner he can… what? Leave?

Shuichi thought he caught a similar distressed look on Kokichi’s face but it was gone as soon as he’d caught it. Maybe it was just his imagination…

“Um… You do that every day though. You’re boring, Shumai. Let’s do something else, before I go and live with that green-eyed dreamboat from yesterday,”

Shuichi felt a rush of jealousy. “R-Rantaro? He would probably kill you…” Rantaro is actually probably the one person that might’ve looked after Kokichi better. He was very big-brotherly and protective… That thought didn’t help him feel any better. “He’s killed people in cases before, y’know.” Maki was the only person who had killed anyone before so that was a lie… a manipulative one at that. He knew Kokichi hated violence… Shuichi suddenly felt rotten to the core.

“I wasn’t being serious, Shumai. But my point is, aren’t you bored? Or tired? You don’t have to do this every day.” Kokichi shrugged. “I have a whole lifetime to find out. It’s not like solving this case is going to make a huge difference in any lives.”

“Isn’t it dangerous…? The longer you stay here, the more often things like yesterday is going to happen, right, Kokichi? I think it’s better if…” Shuichi gulped. “I figure this out as soon as possible so that you can have the truth that I promised you and leave. That’s what you want, right?”

“W-well…” Kokichi had abandoned his breakfast in favour of putting his full attention on Shuichi at that point and the latter couldn’t help but find that strange. He began to fidget. “Ah, I figured it was an inconvenience to be looking after someone all of a sudden…” he said, seemingly more to himself more than Shuichi.

“It’s no problem,” Shuichi said, turning away.

“Wait! Uh, I’m really bored of this investigation actually so we’re going to take a shortcut.”

“…A shortcut?”

“Yeah. It’s called time travelling, except that’s not literally what you’re doing… Using sorcery, I can send you into the deepest recesses of my mind and you can go and look at the memories I’ve forgotten. It’d be like being in a cinema. But I’m trusting you to explain what you see to me very well, or else.”

Shuichi felt himself lose his shit, from his exponentially increasing heart rate to his thoughts stalling as a numbness overtook his mind.

He had been wanting to solve this inconsistency in history this entire time, and this was such an easy way to go about it – so why was every fibre of his being screaming at him to not co-operate?

“D-don’t you think that’s an anticlimactic way for a detective to solve something this big?” Shuichi said, desperate for some excuse to not go along with this way out.

Kokichi shot him a questioning glance. “I didn’t think that sort of thing mattered to you. You’re so uncool in literally every other aspect,” Shuichi saw Kokichi’s eyes glow red as he looked the detective up and down, and felt him magically tugging at his bathrobe and the pyjamas underneath it.

“And it’s definitely not cool to work yourself to the bone until you look like a zombie so I don’t see your point.” Kokichi shrugged and continued with his breakfast.

Shuichi felt his cheeks burn as red as Kokichi’s eyes. He was powerless to stop his panicking and… having your crush tell you that you’re uncool was a level of humiliating Shuichi was having a hard time dealing with.

“Wh-what happens… afterwards then?”

“I’ll go back to Snowcrest Forests, I guess,” Kokichi said, unaware of how crushed that answer made Shuichi. “Though that flutter guardian reads me as a warlock that wants to protect threats now so I’ll have to hide somewhere deeper in, outside of its radius.”

It just seems to keep getting worse and worse.

“Do you think you could stop pacing? You’re making me nervous and I don’t even know what the big deal is. This is what _you_ want right?” Kokichi put down his last piece of toast to snap before returning to nibble at it.

Shuichi opted to sit on a stool to try to appear less visibly torn, but his bouncing leg had other plans.

“Kokichi, I… The _big deal_ is that I don’t want you to leave.” Shuichi managed to say to him, not making eye contact with the sorcerer looked up from his meal. “I like… your company. If I had to choose between figuring out this case and you staying by my side, I would pick the latter. I don’t know what that means for my integrity as a detective but… it is what it is, I guess.”

“Nee-hee-hee… When you put it like that, it sounds like you’re in love with me.” Kokichi giggled.

“Maybe.” You can’t hide it anymore, Shuichi. “Or… most likely. Definitely.”

Kokichi was caught completely off-guard, the full circumference of his crimson eyes visible and his pink lips slightly parted in surprise. His pale, pale cheeks began to tinge with pink, which was a sight that made Shuichi’s heart flutter in the steps of a victorious choreography.

Kokichi let out a laugh of disbelief. “You can’t say that Shumai! We haven’t even been on a date yet—”

“I know! I know - it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I’m sorry if this is an uncomfortable position for you, it’s not that I’ve thought about it extensively but I genuinely didn’t plan on making this love confession in such unromantic circumstances…”

“I’m not sure, Shumai.”

Shuichi felt his dancing heart stop dead in its tracks.

“Y-yesterday, didn’t you say… the only reason why you were holding me was because the other option was putting me on a leash?”

_Ah._

Kokichi’s eyes were welling up with tears and for the first time, they definitely looked genuine. The rest of his face was set in his signature smile, which made the entire situation several times more heartbreaking. He seemed to notice the warmness at his waterline a moment later, and hastily rubbed at his eyes.

Shuichi sighed. Of course he’d have said something to make everything harder for himself. It’s just what he does.

“Kokichi, I’m so sorry. That was out of line… While I did want to stop you from wandering off, I held you because… I don’t know, I just wanted to. I said all of that because it’s all a bit hard and confusing. How can I make this whole thing work with the circumstances you live with? And I was also just running away from myself considering… everything, but it was really wrong of me to say that to you. It wasn’t true, I wish I’d never said it…”

Kokichi’s expression was neutral before he…

…leant in and kissed Shuichi.

…

_Huh?_

Just like that, it was over. He’d leant in, pecked the detective on the lips and sat back down in his seat with a fresh blush painted on his cheeks. It happened so quickly and fleetingly Shuichi doubted it happened at all for a moment.

“…How was it? Did it feel nice? That was my first kiss so if you say it was bad or awkward, I’ll turn you into a horse.”

“I-it… I—” was all Shuichi could stammer before hiding his face in his hands.

“Whoooooa, Shumai.exe has stopped working. Nee-hee-hee,” Kokichi unhelpfully commented.

“Can… can I have another one?” Shuichi managed to ask, his hands still pressed against his bright red cheeks.

“Uhhh… nope! I don’t do it on demand." Kokichi leaned away giggling to himself and it occurred to Shuichi then that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted if he didn’t _do_ anything for his own darn self. So he leant in, and that was probably the first time since meeting Kokichi that he’d really been in charge of something between them.

They kissed until Kokichi pulled away and scolded him for depriving him of breath. He stopped to whine about how Shuichi was trying to kill him via suffocation by kissing, but Shuichi had shut him up with another kiss before he could finish.

“You’re so bad at this.” Kokichi murmured against Shuichi’s lips before pressing another kiss to them. "You’re not letting me breathe. But I kind of get why you have the life force of an angel now. What should I do~? I really might just fall in love with you, Shumai,”

“Sh-shut up… Don’t say things like that.” _Before I fall any harder in love with you first…_

Shuichi didn’t know what else to say. He’d never felt so cornered by his own feelings before.

“Um… Can we stop for now?” Shuichi managed to breathe out between kisses. The remnants of Kokichi’s meal laid abandoned.

“Hmm?” Kokichi hummed against Shuichi lips, making Shuichi laugh. Nice to know that Kokichi was into it as much as he was.

“I said stop,” Shuichi said, tugging Kokichi’s arms around his neck. “We have all day to do that, I need to hear about this time travelling thing…”

“Oh, right. Okay, let’s do it right now.” Kokichi pulled a seat out on the opposite side to where Shuichi was and gestured for him to sit.

“As impatient as ever,” Shuichi commented idly.

“The sooner we get this done the sooner we can go back to making out right?”

Shuichi flushed. “I-I guess?”

“Okay. Ready?”

Shuichi took a deep breath. “Ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am VERY sorry about how late this is. it's not unusual for me to blast through 30k words, become insecure, lose all my motivation and drop off the face of the earth for several months. i decided to try and get my shit together just long enough to finish the chapter i had started so i could at least make this statement with an update so here it is - i can't promise regular updates because i Just Won't Write anything. i have been trying, it's just not happening. so i'm not abandoning this fic per se but i don't see myself updating it for the foreseeable future either.
> 
> maybe i'll come back to it at some point, or even rewrite it all idk but thank you all for all your support up until now and i hope you enjoyed it <3


	10. A Big Brother's Final Lullaby

Shuichi must have been babbling nervously at Kokichi’s side for several minutes as said mage practically inhaled one more portion of scrambled egg in preparation for his performance.

“Oh my goodness. Be quiet,” Kokichi finally exclaimed with his mouth full with the final bite of his breakfast. “Imagine working yourself to the bone for weeks only to bore the only person that can give you the answer to death.”

“I’m sorry!” Shuichi said, only to resume his babbling. “I’m just nervous! For that exact reason, actually, and—”

Shuichi stopped talking when Kokichi slapped his hands on either side of the detective’s face, and brought his own close. Shuichi let out a strange, strangled squealing noise as Kokichi rested his forehead against his own.

“We don’t actually have to sit like this,” Kokichi said, his mischievous smile reaching his sparkling crescent-shaped eyes. His expression then neutralised, and he closed his eyes. Shuichi acknowledged with cross-eyed vision that the mage’s eyelashes were actually very long and pretty. He hadn’t noticed that before. “…But I’d like to.”

A silence followed, letting Shuichi’s senses fixate on only the sounds of the other boy’s breathing and the ticking of a clock on the wall behind him. Settling into the silence and following Kokichi’s lead, he closed his own eyes and felt his erratic breathing synchronise with the calmness of Kokichi’s.

“I’m going to do it now,” Kokichi spoke gently after some time, using the pads of his thumbs where he’d been holding Shuichi’s face the entire time to comfortingly draw circular shapes across the skin of his cheeks when he’d felt the detective tense up.

There was no mistake telling when Kokichi began using his magic, since the warm sensation of Kokichi’s forehead against Shuichi’s turned into the sharp, ice cold feeling of a bullet piercing straight through his cranium.

It wasn’t long after that before a vision presented itself before Shuichi.

There was… a teenager. No, not a teenager… a child. Two children. One child was holding the other, who was visibly younger and was asleep in the older child’s arms. He was watching the sky intently, as though he was anticipating something.

As his vision focussed, Shuichi’s senses registered a sound… The sound of singing. It was a lullaby that Shuichi judged as equal parts sweet and haunting.

There was a pause in the singing. Then silence followed, making Shuichi indescribably nervous. The child then suddenly but slowly bent his knees, eyes still locked on the sky in wait – it was as though he was bracing himself for something…

Shuichi watched with a new sense of horror when the boy leapt from his position to a new one several feet away, narrowly dodging a grenade that had been lobbed in his direction.

The explosive went off on impact with the ground, blasting dirt and torn grass in all directions. Instinctively, Shuichi shielded himself with his arms, but relaxed again when he found that the shrapnel and debris was phasing right through him.

As the boy landed, his features revealed themselves to Shuichi for a split second before his long messy purple hair settled around his face. Recognition was immediate. Big, round, crimson eyes against pale skin – a face strikingly like Kokichi’s, so much that Shuichi felt a wave of nausea wash over him, but also _not_ – yet still a face that Shuichi was familiar with – to some degree, from somewhere…

It didn’t take long for Shuichi to figure it out, of course. Had he not been stuck in a momentary trance of disbelief, he would’ve had it pinned it down within the second.

It was Kokichi’s elder brother. Which meant the child he was holding…

Shuichi didn’t have time to finish the thought – not that he really needed to – because the child had turned around and began to retreat. Shuichi barely registered the world distorting and warping around him to keep up with the boy on his behalf as Kokichi’s magic intended, because he had immediately given chase himself.

“It’s so like me to forget the lyrics after this, right, Kokichi?” he heard the child say, and Shuichi felt his heart squeeze. Hearing the child being referred to by name provided painful confirmation and it was just… too much.

“I’ll leave you with the last bit of it that I remember though,” he continued, walking into a lake that Shuichi belatedly recognised as a lake in Snowcrest Forests.

_“Don’t ever take back your kind hand,_

_Lest precious love slip away like time’s sand,”_

It seemed painfully ironic that as he sung those words, the child was untangling a sleeping “ _Kokichi’s”_ limbs from his body to place him into what looked like a magically induced air bubble under the lake’s water surface.

_“Only we will know all that was lost,”_

The older child removed his black and white checkered scarf and placed it over _“Kokichi”_ like a blanket as the bubble began to descend.

_“Scars that we can’t erase, show us life’s true cost…”_

On the final syllable, Shuichi’s hyperaware senses differentiated the sound of a bullet piercing through the air from the sound of rustling leaves and rushing winds.

_Sniper rifle._

He squeezed his eyes shut when he saw it strike the child, but he still heard his body hit the water.

Shuichi squatted down to the floor, holding his arms over his tightly shut eyes. It wasn’t long before he realised it was no use – Kokichi’s magic meant to show Shuichi a vision, and that was _exactly_ what it was going to do.

The images of a child’s corpse being dragged out of the lake and into a body bag danced frame by frame on the insides of Shuichi’s eyelids – wet hair against that sickeningly familiar face, limp arms at his sides, the lake’s water flowing red – red, red, red, as red as his eyes had been just a moment ago.

Shuichi was far too hysterical to register the rest of the vision, but the last thing he’d seen before being brought out by a pair of small, delicate, but firm hands was the sight of Kokichi’s younger, smaller frame crawling out of the lake mixed with his own brother’s blood after the soldiers had retreated. He blinked, and that Kokichi was once again the Kokichi he was more familiar with – no baby fat on that concerned face of his, the taller and more defined form of an adult’s and eyes lacking in the blissful childish ignorance that he’d seen on the two Oumas a moment ago.

Shuichi passed out into Kokichi’s lap almost immediately afterwards.

* * *

When Shuichi came to, he’d been placed in his bed and… Kokichi had his face unsettlingly close. He was too tired to express any surprise (as little as it was at this point) so he opted to leave his eyes fixed on the ceiling instead.

“Well…?” Kokichi prompted a moment later, his fingers gripping Shuichi’s bedding nervously.

“Well…” Shuichi began, his voice becoming strained when he found that pushing himself up into a sitting position was turning out to be harder than usual. He brought his knees to his chest and let out a shaky breath when he realised he was going to have to articulate the horrible reality he’d seen. Kokichi had a right to know…

He stretched his legs again and rolled his shoulders in a self-soothing gesture, and faced Kokichi, who was still patiently kneeling at his bedside, his expression unreadable. “I saw you and your brother.” Shuichi swallowed. _How do you describe a man’s murder to his brother?_ “It looked like he hid you in—”

“No, not that.” Kokichi interrupted, his features still painted an unfamiliar look of apprehension. “I don’t care about that… Not anymore, anyway. I was asking you if you were satisfied with what you saw.”

“S-satisfied?” Shuichi tasted bile. There was a large list of words Shuichi could use to describe how he felt about the experience, and _satisfied_ certainly wasn’t on it. Shuichi’s overwhelming confusion translated into irritation. “How could I have been satisfied with watching your brother die?”

Kokichi sighed. “That’s not it, either. You wanted to figure out how I managed to survive The Tragedy and what happened afterwards, right? You have your answer now, so are you satisfied?”

He whispered the last part, his neutral expression crumbling into something more fragile and it was becoming apparent to Shuichi that the mage was likely trying not to cry – he seemed to have lowered the volume of his voice to stop the detective from hearing it breaking.

“Kokichi, I… My answer is no. Yes, my initial objective was to uncover the truth behind this massive contradiction in history, but that wasn’t my only intention… I also wanted to thank you, for saving my life… And I wanted to solve the mystery behind _that_ , too. With all that considered, how could I be satisfied with just what I saw today?”

“Behind… _that_?” Kokichi repeated after him, his eyebrows drawn in confusion.

“Yeah. About _why_ you even saved me in the first place, you know? I think that was the mystery I was really trying to solve the entire time. Not just where you came from but… What you and other people like you were really like. And like I said earlier… I fell in love with the conclusion I reached so you don’t need to make this face anymore…” Shuichi brought a hand up to wipe at Kokichi’s cheeks, where phantom tears he probably wouldn’t have noticed had his job not just been glorified observation had spilled in faint silver strings down his face. “And that’s something I don’t know if I’ll ever be satisfied with. I’ll always want you by my side, and I’ll always want to see more of you, hear more from you, and understand more of you… I like you. And I’m sorry it took me so long to figure this all out and make it clear to you – I know I’m a detective so you would expect me to be smarter, but even I’m susceptible to denial, you know? I’m only human…”

Shuichi’s hand fell to Kokichi’s, and he brought it up to plant a firm kiss to his knuckles.

When he’d done that, Kokichi suddenly buried his face in Shuichi’s chest. It took the detective by surprise, but he suppressed a flinch and quickly regained his composure, relaxing into Kokichi’s embrace.

“I know you said that earlier but I was honestly having a hard time believing it,” Kokichi murmured into the fabric of his pajamas before rolling over onto his bed and into his lap – like a cat, Shuichi fondly noted – to look up at him at the end of his sentence. “So I needed to hear it again. Thank you…” Kokichi reached up and placed a hand against Shuichi’s cheek, and the detective brought his own up to hold it there. “I know I’m pretty difficult and probably hard to love—”

“No, that’s wrong.” Shuichi interjected immediately. “You’re easy to love, Kokichi. I won’t… I won’t let you talk about yourself like that, not when the world has been so cruel to you already.”

Shuichi watched as Kokichi’s expression cycled from vulnerable to neutral to… cheeky?

“Good to know!” he sing-songed, wriggling out of Shuichi’s grasp and springing to his feet. “Well, you were out for a solid few hours, so another meal would be nice. And soon!” He turned, practically skipping out of the room – but Shuichi caught the sight of him hastily bringing his sleeve to his face as he turned the corner.

Shuichi figured it was safe to assume his heart did reach the crimson-eyed wonder, though he would of course prefer it if the sorcerer would cry in his arms rather than by himself… But it was okay.

Shuichi took a deep breath.

It was okay.

Everything was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been playing ndrv3 again and i missed these two and this story so much so i revisited it and wrote another chapter. can't promise regular updates but god i really hope i can get into some kind of routine with this because i genuinely do still love writing this and these two characters and never wanted to abandon it. i hope some of my old regular readers find this and are happy to see it again, and thank you to everyone in general for giving this the time of day. i appreciate each and every one of you <3
> 
> forgive me for making it so short - it's not even 2k which is my standard for every other chapter, with most of them being way over that count. i was just too excited to get this out.
> 
> the song ouma's bro sings is edge of dawn from fe3h, i thought the lyrics and both arrangements of the song resonated with the original plot and world so much and it really got this story on its feet way back when i started working on repurposing it


	11. Tulip Field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a long ass chapter, at around 3.8k. i found a comfortable pace again. hopefully any burn outs i run into won't last as long as last time hehe. enjoy <3

Time passed.

Despite the less than ideal circumstances, the detective and the sorcerer grew close. Shuichi expected that dating a sorcerer would take convoluted methods, but there were surprisingly simple workarounds. Dinner dates were Shuichi’s idea, and movie nights at cinemas but with extra gummy bears and popcorn were Kokichi’s – after all, he couldn’t run out of the energy he needed to disguise the hue of his eyes if he just never stopped eating.

That being said, the pair of them preferred spending time indoors together by a wide margin. Trash TV, games, conversations, holding each other close… and also pranks, plenty of those.

And lying, lots of that.

Teasing, too.

Regardless of how much Shuichi could say he enjoyed any of that though, he felt their bond grow stronger with time.

Which is why he figured he couldn’t leave Kokichi in the thin futon set on the floor. It was never meant for long-term use – he’d bought it cheaply for whenever Rantaro or Kaito stayed over.

There was no room in his current house for a second bed either, so Kokichi was promoted from the futon on the floor to sharing Shuichi’s bed.

It was still a less than ideal sleeping arrangement though, since Shuichi’s bed was still a single bed. He often found himself uncomfortably pressed against the cold wall – and no amount of holding Kokichi closer would make the conditions more comfortable, so he’d sometimes just roll out Kokichi’s futon again and take the floor himself while letting the wizard who would usually fall asleep first stay in bed. Or sometimes he’d take the sofa downstairs. Either way though, he’d usually wake up with Kokichi’s sleeping form curled up beside him. The sorcerer’s warmth was constant everywhere in the house, and despite the fact that there was no avoiding the ordeal of eventually needing to find a bigger house for the both of them if things were going to continue this way, it was all still such a _relief_ that everything was _okay_. They were both safe, their affections for each other were returned, the less-than-ideal living situation was still _working_ and both of them were _happy_.

It’d been about a fortnight after Shuichi had made that clumsy love confession in the kitchen when Kokichi had said he’d wanted to go time travelling again.

“What for?” Shuichi asked, lowering the gas on the stove in order to give the sorcerer sitting across the counter from him his full attention.

“Because I love you so much, my dearest detective.”

Shuichi blushed. “That’s not an answer…”

“Oh, but it is.” Kokichi propelled himself from his seat and levitated over to Shuichi’s side, perching on the countertop closest to him.

All hints of mischief and playfulness that characterised Kokichi’s voice vanished the next time he opened his mouth, replaced by a sincerity and gentleness that Shuichi hadn’t heard from him before. “The last time we did it, it was pretty scary for you, right? Having to see a kid die with your own two eyes and all. And knowing you, you probably haven’t stopped thinking about it.”

…It made Shuichi mildly nervous that Kokichi could read him so well already. Despite their newfound bond and the very strong feelings between them, Shuichi naturally still had some walls up. They don’t come down all at once… Yet Kokichi seemed to be phasing right through them and had made himself comfortable right in the core of Shuichi’s being.

It was just a little unsettling.

“I don’t want you to keep feeling sorry for me so I wanna show you… something else. Something nice. You’re not going to say no, are you? To a date that I thought through so carefully?” Kokichi pouted – an obviously superficial pout, but a pout that Shuichi wanted off his face nonetheless.

“Of course not… When are we doing it, then?”

“Tomorrow!” Kokichi chirped. “You have weekends off, right? So Saturdays are good?”

“Right.” Shuichi replied idly.

“There’s somewhere I want to take you when we do it though, so let’s go to dinner first since I’ll need a _lot_ of energy,” Kokichi drawled. “And… it’ll be fun.” Shuichi heard the hints of mischief return to his voice. “Your cheeks puff out like a squirrel when you eat and it’s so entertaining to watch.”

“H-hey— yours do too, Kokichi!” Shuichi reached out to lightly shove Kokichi, but the smaller of them slid off the counter and just barely dodged the detective’s attack. He instead caught the sorcerer by the sleeve mid-flee, but Kokichi wriggled out of his momentary captor’s grip with relative ease since the latter had cooking to mind.

The sorcerer repositioned himself across from Shuichi again, giggling teasingly at the distance the counter put between them. Shuichi’s gaze dropped to the exposed skin where he’d pulled Kokichi’s sleeve up.

It had felt like years since Shuichi had first met him and the mage was just skin and bones – all sunken cheeks, silent and weightless footsteps and deathly pale skin. While there hadn’t been much change in his complexion since it’s not like Kokichi goes out much more often now than he did before, there was a visible change to his weight. Shuichi’s eyes flicked back up to meet Kokichi’s again and he could confirm – a rounder face, thicker hair and a healthy glow about him…

He basked in what he saw.

“…Shumai, you’re staring. Watch the cooking.”

“Oh!” Shuichi caught himself, and redirected his attention back to the sizzling in front of him. Kokichi continued to giggle from across the counter.

Shuichi revelled in the blissful feeling of contentedness that the whole exchange had aroused in him.

He was happy. _They_ were happy.

* * *

“This is where you wanted to bring me…?”

Kokichi, scarlet eyes shrouded behind a magically-induced deep purple pigment, stood at the entrance of Snowcrest Forest beside Shuichi for the first time since the two had met that fateful day.

It’d be a lie if Shuichi said something uncomfortable hadn’t stirred within him.

It was _scary_ to be here again – the last time he was here, he had to carry a wounded and unconscious mage to his house. He’d been a stranger then, and Shuichi wasn’t sure how much it would pain him to do something like that _now_ , after all that’s happened.

The forests weren’t particularly a place Shuichi frequented, bar the time that one investigation that took place here. So he thought he could go back to forgetting the whole place existed, but Kokichi evidently had other plans.

“What I want to show you is through here, Shumai~” he sing-songed, tugging the detective by the hand. When Shuichi didn’t follow, he turned to face him.

“Are you afraid?” He asked, studying Shuichi’s expression. “I lived here for over 20 years, y’know? There’s nothing to be afraid of. Besides, I can protect you!” He chirped, an accomplished grin adorning his face.

“Like you did last time, huh?” Shuichi teased, taking an encouraged but cautious step forward. Kokichi wouldn’t have dragged the detective all the way out here for no good reason, he decided.

“Like I did last time.” Kokichi laughed. “I’ll try to avoid getting myself killed, though.”

On that unconvincing note, the pair of them stepped through the threshold.

It hadn’t been that long since Shuichi marched through here with Maki and the others by his side, with the brown-haired woman having slashed her way through the vegetation and charged straight for the heart of the forest fearlessly. Yet, the greenery seemed to have regenerated to a greater density somehow, in such a short amount of time… Not that it mattered, since Kokichi seemed to be taking a completely different path, bending and moving the foliage out of his way at will.

With how secretive this new road was, it really spoke to Shuichi how amazing the civilisation of sorcerers must have been. For a forest to have a self preservation mechanism like this, the technology of flutter guardians and now passages that only opened up to wizards – it was all truly more than he could conceptualise. The Future Foundation must’ve really resorted to some inhumane methods to have achieved the reach that they had…

…He shouldn’t really be thinking about that stuff anymore. He ought to put it behind him already – Kokichi was already stepping into the future, so Shuichi should work harder to keep up with him.

“We’re here.” Kokichi spoke, releasing Shuichi’s hand and stepping through a large mossy archway.

Ahead of them stood two large slabs of stone, an intricate pattern carved into them – Shuichi recognised the images from a history textbook he’d read once upon a time during his school days. He’d learnt at some point that magically generated gateways were marked depending on the kind of spell put on them. He didn’t remember the specifics anymore – he’d taken and passed those exams long ago.

Shuichi positioned himself within arm’s length of Kokichi again when the latter stepped forward and began to clear some vines out of the way roughly in the centre of the double doors. From this position at the foot of the gateway, Shuichi realised that regardless of how much he craned his neck, he couldn’t see the top.

The dizziness that resulted from his efforts wasn’t something he wasn’t used to, since he’d grown up doing the same thing to the skyscrapers he was surrounded by having lived in his city for so long.

“Oh! Here it is…” He heard Kokichi mumble to himself before he placed a hand against the stone. Shuichi curiously stepped forward to get a closer look when he noticed pale blue light glowing from between Kokichi’s fingers, and noticed that his eyes were glowing the same colour in return.

The light intensified into a vertical beam, casting shadows onto the ground behind them, and it took Shuichi a moment to realise Kokichi had put a gap between the doors.

It took Shuichi even longer to realise that the gap was growing, with more and more light spilling through as the doors opened. He was impressed by how soundless the process was, but he heard birds flee their nests nearby regardless.

Dazzled, Shuichi opted to close his eyes. It wasn’t long before he heard laughter at his side, followed by a gentle “You can open your eyes now,” from a familiar voice, audibly laced with love.

He did, and it took a moment but his eyes did eventually adjust to the brightness. It was his breathing that he needed to check next, because the view that greeted him was phenomenal.

It was a flower field – yellow tulips as far as the eye could see, with a single large evergreen oak in the centre.

With none of the two-, three-, four-storey rows of terraced housing or high rise office blocks one right after the other obscuring his vision, the sky looked so _big_ here. Endless, even. Kokichi must’ve been thinking the same, since he began to chase the only group of wispy clouds overhead.

Shuichi followed him in, marvelling at the immense expanse of the area. At some point, Kokichi began to take cloud chasing a bit more seriously and darted off the ground, stopping some ways midair, as though he belatedly realised it was unsafe to try to actually go and touch the clouds.

It gave Shuichi the opportunity to tend to his curiosity about the vast stretch of the meadow. He reached the opposite end of it, where a pale grey chainlink fence sectioned off the field from the end of the cliff. Beyond it was a waterfall and a river that Shuichi didn’t know existed here – where did it even drain? There were no larger rivers, reservoirs or oceans anywhere near the area. Shuichi would know – the city’s water supply was managed with a combination of local groundwater extraction and importing freshwater from countryside tributaries, which made for expensive water bills as a result.

He followed the edge of the cliff in the direction of the river to see where it ended, but the sparkling body of water took a course through a tunnel built into the wall so his investigation could only end there.

There _had_ been a lake nearby, but it’d been drained of its resources over a decade ago during rebuilding, so it was safe to deduce it wasn’t receiving flow from this river. The lake that had protected Kokichi as a child…

“Still a nerd, even here.” Came said boy’s familiar teasing tone, taking Shuichi out of his thoughts. “This river seems to flow in a circuit, but it must have been enhanced by sorcery because otherwise the water would be still and stagnant, right?” The smaller of them continued. _Shuichi could listen to him all day…_ “I mean, the more jarring piece of evidence that points to magical tampering would be the fact that the waterfall flows in two directions, but this is a fair point, too.”

Shuichi spluttered. “It does what?”

“Huh? You didn’t notice?” Kokichi landed beside him, placing his hands behind his head. “Go and look again! I’m not lying, half of it flows upwards.”

Shuichi did an awkward half-jog after Kokichi who glided back towards the waterfall, barely skimming the surface of the tulips underfoot.

Sure enough, Shuichi could spot the strange behaviour of the rushing water this time.

“There’s a freshwater reservoir up there, and then there’s another cliff looking out onto this huge-ass field,” Kokichi punctuated his dialogue with gestures, “and you can see the next town over from there if you squint hard enough. I can show you if you want.”

“H-hey!!” Kokichi hadn’t waited for a reply, grabbing Shuichi by the wrists and hoisting him up in the air.

“Wow, you’re lighter than you look!” Kokichi exclaimed, ignoring Shuichi’s alarmed noises of objection.

The detective looked down and immediately regret his decision. Thank goodness that it seemed Shuichi’s last meal had already digested.

Kokichi released the petrified detective once they’d reached the higher clifftop and as Kokichi had described, there was a reservoir running in two directions atop the waterfall.

The lack of natural order made Shuichi nervous, but he decided against commenting on it.

Kokichi landed with a somersault, and then gestured for Shuichi to sit across from him.

“The waterfall isn’t as loud up here so I can concentrate better,” he said, grinning as Shuichi wiggled into a comfortable sitting position cross-legged among the tulips.

“Come closer…” He added warmly, pulling Shuichi towards him before cupping his face in his hands again like he’d done that day in the kitchen weeks ago.

“Your eyes are so pretty,” Shuichi got to say freely this time as the other boy pressed their foreheads together. The warlock’s eyes ironically disappeared into a happy pair of crescents at the compliment.

“Even with this colour?” He asked shyly, as the deep purple faded into brownish red and then finally his natural bright crimson.

“Especially with that colour.”

He laughed, averting his gaze. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear that, even from you. Well anyway,” Kokichi cleared his throat, evidently embarrassed. Shuichi considered that an absolute win.

“We’re going to start now. You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be…” was Shuichi’s quiet response. And there was the ice-cold piercing sensation through his forehead again.

_Shuichi opened his eyes and he was… somewhere completely different, yet the same._

_He stood up and dusted off his jeans as he began to inspect his whereabouts – the shape of the expanse was immediately familiar, but not a single flower was in sight, and the previously large blue sky overhead was instead dyed a bright fiery red. The only thing that helped Shuichi confirm his suspicions as to where he was really was the evergreen oak he was standing under._

_He turned and looked all around him – just a dirt field as far as the eye could see… until his eyes landed on silhouette of two approaching figures._

_He could infer that the smaller of the two was Kokichi and the taller was… his dead brother._

_Swallowing thickly, Shuichi averted his gaze. It was just too cruel… He couldn’t face the sins of his people’s history so easily._

_His second-hand grief was interrupted by the sound of laughter. He found it in himself to peer up at the pair of them again from behind his bangs, and found that Kokichi’s tiny form was being twirled around in the air by his big brother, the both of them smiling happily._

_Immediately, Shuichi was filled with a sense of comfort and warmth. Kokichi had mentioned he wanted to share a happy memory with Shuichi – something sweet and gentle, despite the circumstances. By fixating on the element of loss in this vision, he’d be doing the sorcerer a disservice. So he approached the two figures with a newfound sense of optimism, and watched as the taller of the two brothers safely returned a tiny Kokichi back to the ground once he’d lost momentum in the air._

_It was inaudible, but Shuichi could see the two talking, with the elder brother squatting down to Kokichi’s level. He then pulled the smaller sorcerer up, holding him at his side, before gesturing around him as though he was telling his little brother to watch._

_Both Shuichi and the two-foot-tall Kokichi watched the young sorcerer intently as his eyes barely visible under a curtain of unkempt purple hair glowed, and at his feet, sprouts began to emerge from the dirt. They spread, stretching like veins, until a circle of small yellow buds burst from the ground beneath him. He then began to walk, yellow petals blooming from the ground in his wake._

_The infant in the wizard’s arms was as starstruck by the feat as Shuichi was, his eyes trained on the ground behind his brother’s back._

_Kokichi was then returned to the ground, yelping when the dirt at his feet became rooted with blossoms too. Happily, Kokichi stepped in circles around his brother, the pair of them cultivating a meadow from a wasteland._

Shuichi was then promptly taken out of the vision, whining discontentedly at the dizziness that overcame him.

Kokichi laughed at that. “Look at you! This is a completely different face from the last time we did this.” He said as Shuichi buried his face in his hands, overcome with dizziness. At least he didn’t pass out this time.

“Well? Was it pretty?” Kokichi asked, plucking tulips from the ground beside him.

“Yes,” Shuichi replied as the world continued to spin around him.

“I finished mourning my brother’s passing years ago. I don’t want you to grieve for me all over again, y’know?” The sorcerer spoke as he began threading the large yellow flowers together with flashes of light from his fingertips. “Our memories are happy. I want you to remember him the way I do. You don’t need to keep pitying me.”

“…I understand. I’m sorry.” Shuichi said.

There was a pause as Kokichi continued fiddling with the flowers around him, and Shuichi took the opportunity to look out at the stretch of tulips from the new higher perspective again. It really was so big, bright and beautiful… he’d describe it as _magical_ , but the word didn’t have as much appeal in these circumstances considering that it all _was_ literally magical.

“So… you and your brother did all this, huh?”

Kokichi followed his gaze. “Yeah, it was nothing before him. Well, I can’t say what it was before a dirt field though. There was probably something here before your old government blew it to pieces.” A refreshing breeze blew, and Shuichi took in the view of the curl in the wizard’s hair dancing with it. “I put the spell on the forest to make it regenerate as fast as it does. I put that big stone gateway up. To protect this place…”

There was a thoughtful pause as Kokichi finished threading the flowers into a thick, sturdy loop. “Well, I just wanted to show you my home. Since we’ve been in yours all this time.”

He then placed his handmade flower crown upon Shuichi’s head. “Yellow doesn’t suit you at all,” he laughed. “Sadly, this is the only crown I can offer my prince~” Kokichi blew a raspberry at the detective when he met his embarrassed gaze.

“Morning glory would probably suit you better, huh? Or maybe lilies. It’s a shame my brother picked yellow tulips to fill this field with. I read that they represent hopelessness somewhere,” he mumbled as he shuffled closer to Shuichi and placed his head against his shoulder, the pair of them looking out onto the meadow. “How insulting is that as a final gift to his brother? Feels like he’s taunting me from the grave.”

The pair of them chuckled at that idea before Kokichi shyly brought his hand over Shuichi’s which had been resting in his lap.

They stayed like that for some time, watching the sky quietly as it turned from blue to pink and orange, until the sun annoyingly positioned itself on the horizon and directly into Shuichi’s irritated eyes.

He sighed, shaking off Kokichi’s hand in order to shield his vision from the sun’s harsh glare.

“Watching the sunset is supposed to be more romantic than this.” Kokichi laughed, before bringing his hand over his eyes too. “Welp. What do you say? Time to head back?” He asked, extending a hand to Shuichi after getting up with some kind of aerial somersault that he was starting to get used to seeing. Shuichi wondered if that was a sorcerer’s equivalent of dusting off and stretching after having sat down for a while, judging by how often he’d seen Kokichi do that.

Shuichi took his hand, letting out an exasperated exhale when he was swiftly pulled up onto his feet, and then off them again. Of course, they’d have to go back down the same way they’d come back up.

“Say, Detective,” Kokichi spoke some ways into the descent. Shuichi took the sensation of slowing down in the air as a signal that they were almost safely across and could open his eyes again.

That was a mistake.

“Ah-!” The flower crown slipped off of Shuichi as he registered the fact that he was 150 feet above the surface of the river water that separated the two cliff edges. He reached out for it belatedly, and could only watch as it met its end with a soft, distant _splash_ sound. It came undone into a flurry of yellow petals with the harsh current at the foot of the waterfall and eventually, Shuichi couldn’t see it anymore.

“Crap…” Shuichi found that he couldn’t stay upset for the loss of Kokichi’s gift to him for long, when he noticed that the ambience of the situation had changed drastically.

_Why… was Kokichi stopped in a place like this…?_

“K-Kokichi, what are you doing…?” Shuichi managed to stutter out when he felt his grip on the sorcerer beginning to slip.

“Saihara, I said I was going to find the perfect time to kill you, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol


	12. Distrust

“Saihara, I said I was going to find the perfect time to kill you, right?”

Everything around Shuichi seemed to come to a standstill.

“Wh… What do you mean?” Shuichi could barely even hear himself over the furious pounding of his heart against his ribcage.

It didn’t settle when Kokichi’s grip on his wrist slipped down to his hand.

“That’s a weird final question to ask. Don’t you remember?” Kokichi raised a hand, and his voice disorientingly resounded around the pair of them from all angles.

_“I saved your life so it’s mine to toy with~ I’ll find a really fun way to kill you, Mr Detective, so just leave it to me.”_

Somewhere amongst Shuichi’s racing thoughts was the image of Kokichi sitting at Shuichi’s dining table, heavy tracks of crocodile tears meeting under his chin, as he grinned impishly and so casually threatened the detective’s life.

_That was… the morning after they’d met?_

“Y-You… I thought you were lying. Of course you were… You’re still lying, right? This is another one of your jokes…?” Tears rapidly filled his eyes and spilled over onto his cheeks when Kokichi’s grip slipped one more time, down to Shuichi’s fingers. “You’ve been planning to kill me for this long?” His voice failed him at the end, trailing off pathetically. “Was everything a–”

_“Lie?”_ The pair of them said simultaneously.

Shuichi could no longer see Kokichi’s face from behind the harsh blur of the film of tears over his eyes, but he felt the sorcerer shake with laughter.

“Well yeah, duh. I _am_ a liar, after all.”

And then he let go.

_He let go._

Shuichi was too petrified to even cry out, but the wind seemed to be doing all the screaming on his behalf as he continued to plummet at full velocity. As the roar of the approaching rush of water began to dominate his senses, Kokichi’s figure beyond his outstretched hand became smaller and smaller until finally, everything stopped with one deafening crashing sound.

He’d hit the surface of the water head-first. Before any more panic or dread could settle in the detective’s veins, he found himself flooded with relief first – the water pressure somehow _didn’t_ shatter his skull and somehow the drop _didn’t_ knock all the oxygen out of his lungs until they spasmed and failed and the impact somehow _didn’t_ rob him of consciousness.

So he didn’t die instantly. He still had a chance… to die to a slow drowning instead.

On that thought, he desperately began to paddle for the surface again. He found in record time that it was futile to fight the current, but he figured he could deal with that problem _later_ , for now he just had to keep his head above water and _breathe_.

…Right?

Wrong.

He’d only hit the surface of the river mere moments ago, but the current had already swept him several metres from where he’d been with Kokichi, and he was now approaching the drainage tunnel – _fast_.

The adrenaline commanding him to thrash and paddle even more desperately kicked in only momentarily. He resigned to his fate as quickly as his survival instincts abandoned him.

Hot tears quickly cooled as they met the cold river water on his face. He closed his eyes, waiting for unconsciousness to claim him, but…

“ _Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust_ kidding!”

Scooped up by the shoulders like a bird skimming the surface of the ocean for its prey, Shuichi was pulled up into the air. His clothes, saturated with water, clung to his body awkwardly, making him shudder.

He hadn’t registered much of his ascension back to solid ground but the first thing he directed his returning strength to was swatting away Kokichi’s hands that were prodding at the detective’s face.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” He managed to spit angrily. Kokichi, unfazed, dried off Shuichi’s clothes and hair, making the latter puff up and curl at the unusual drying method.

The wizard leant in one more time, making Shuichi recoil and scowl. He seemed to be inspecting the detective’s face, before his face fell with the weight of some kind of disappointment that Shuichi didn’t care to source for the first time since meeting the sorcerer.

“Uhhh… it was a prank. Yeah, let’s go with that,” Kokichi said, evidently distracted.

Furious. Shuichi was furious.

“A… _prank_.” He let out a disbelieving laugh. “Is this _fun_ for you, Kokichi? Don’t you get tired of pulling this shit all the time?”

_That_ certainly brought the wizard’s attention back onto Shuichi.

“Sure is,” he said without missing a beat. “And no, I don’t.”

Shuichi felt his heart sink. The raw fury from a moment ago had been quelled by a quieter but far more painful feeling that he couldn’t quite place.

It wasn’t quite heartbreak nor betrayal, neither here nor there, but…

The aching realisation that Kokichi just didn’t _care_.

“…I’m going home.” The detective declared quietly. Kokichi didn’t follow him out, and Shuichi felt parts of his already-shattered heart chip away into smaller pieces with every step he took away from him.

* * *

Kokichi came home at some time past midnight.

Shuichi had gone straight to bed that day, but it hadn’t been a particularly restful Saturday evening for him. All he’d found within himself to do was cry.

Kokichi had taken the couch – something Shuichi acknowledged quietly on his quest to tiptoe to the bathroom without attracting any attention to himself. A familiar mop of purple hair was visible behind one end of the living room loveseat when Shuichi had peered through a crack in the door on his way to the aforementioned bathroom.

He didn’t see the wizard again until Monday, having spent the entirety of Sunday in the same miserable way as the prior evening.

Unfortunately Monday _was_ the beginning of the work week, and Shuichi did have a job he’d like to keep.

He wasn’t sure how long the mutual silent treatment was going to last under normal circumstances, but unfortunately, Shuichi wasn’t given the liberty of finding out.

En route to the living room ironing board with a creased dress shirt in hand, Shuichi found that the wizard had not moved an inch since he’d last seen him that evening he’d tiptoed to the bathroom. He had Shuichi’s throw blanket pulled up all the way to his nose, eyes tightly shut and a frown was etched onto the visible part of his face.

Shuichi paused. Normally, he would simply just approach Kokichi to investigate any strange behaviour further – if not to just ask outright.

But Shuichi didn’t really feel like doing that right now…

Instead, he cycled through possible explanations. What seemed most likely was that Kokichi hadn’t eaten after using all that magic on Saturday, since Shuichi hadn’t cooked.

He _would_ feel sorry for the wizard if that were the case, but it’s not like Shuichi had eaten either. And there was nothing stopping the wizard from preparing meals for himself anyway.

The detective didn’t have to keep wondering for long, since Kokichi began to stir.

“Uhhh… Morning.” Shuichi said awkwardly, wanting to make his presence known sooner rather than later.

“Oh… Good morning,” Kokichi responded soon afterwards, sounding uncharacteristically polite.

When the sorcerer proceeded to sneeze and blow himself clean off the loveseat and into the ceiling with a dull _thump_ noise, it became apparent the reason for his pitchier and more obedient tone was probably because he was down with some kind of illness.

“Oww…” he exclaimed weakly on his way back down.

Sure, the pair of them were in a fight but Shuichi felt his heart pang at the image of Kokichi curled up into himself on the floor now, holding his head.

Shuichi _wanted_ to check if the purple-haired figure crawling back onto his loveseat had a fever but… there were no thermometers in the house and the idea of coming any closer to Kokichi let alone touching him wasn’t sitting well with him right now.

He figured it was a safe assumption that the wizard did have a fever judging by all of his other visible symptoms, and decided to leave it at that.

“Does… Does like, _human_ medicine work on you?” Shuichi asked clumsily, opening the medicine cabinet in search of flu symptom relief and promptly having a packet of painkillers roll out autonomously and fall directly onto Shuichi’s face and then onto the floor.

On his way down to pick it up, Shuichi caught sight of Kokichi’s expressions cycling between… hurt? And then thoughtful, and then finally indignant.

“Excuse you. I _am_ a human – more human than _your_ end of the spectrum,” Kokichi croaked out.

Shuichi stared back at the pair of tired but angry, glaring red eyes until the gears in his head finished turning. “It’s not that I was implying that you _weren’t_ human, but you honestly could’ve fooled me – what, with all the shit you pull all the time it’s hard to believe another human being could be as insufferable as you are,” he retorted eventually.

Judging by the way Kokichi’s face fell, that was probably enough. Shuichi kept going regardless.

“Though I suppose it’s no surprise to me with your special combination of idiocy and inferiority complex that you would jump to that conclusion.” The detective willed his gaze away from the wizard back to the medicine cabinet in an effort to ignore the pure, unadulterated pain he saw in those eyes.

Kokichi went quiet after that, and it didn’t feel nearly as good as Shuichi had imagined it would.

“I’m going to work. This is taken after a meal and with water,” he said after several minutes of procrastinating on approaching Kokichi again. He dropped the packet of flu symptom relief medication onto the tea table in front of Kokichi’s makeshift bed. “You can handle organising that yourself, I’m sure.” Avoiding eye contact, Shuichi grabbed his unironed shirt from the unused ironing board, turned on heel and left the room, closing the door behind him.

_This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Not even during a fight_ , Shuichi knew to acknowledge on his way back to his bedroom.

_If this is how it’s going to be, it’s better for both of us to part ways._

* * *

When it rains, it pours.

Tsumugi slid five dark photographs across the meeting room table to the centre, where a dozen eyes gathered around peered down at them.

“These photographs were taken at 10pm on Saturday night,” she said.

The situation was so bizarre that Shuichi didn’t even blink when he looked at those photographs. The disbelief was overwhelming. Everything was seriously beginning to feel like something out of a bad comedy skit.

“Around the residential end of Flakes’ Road.” She continued. “Retrieved from a resident’s security footage. A tenant of one of the apartments there thought she heard strange sniffling sounds from the roof and went to investigate under the impression of a water issue somewhere on her property. She headed out onto her roof from the loft, and that’s when she made eye contact with this young man that was sitting there,” she pointed at the small, dark, shadowy silhouette on one of the photographs, “and suddenly, all the streetlights went bust.”

“Now, by itself, it’s not very suspicious. The man didn’t appear to be doing anything, and the report from the electricals company stated that the evidence would suggest a short circuit malfunction – although, they mentioned they were struggling to determine an exact cause – but regardless… The reason why I’ve been asked by our seniors to urgently share this with you all this morning is because the tenant reported that when she opened the loft door, she seemed to startle the man and his eyes apparently flashed from purple to red before the streetlights went out.”

Shuichi wanted to laugh.

“With that considered, things begin to look a lot more worrisome. Someone being on a stranger’s roof is suspicious enough because the question of _how_ one would get up there springs to mind followed by _why_ , but it would make sense if the person in question was a wizard. We know that sorcerers can levitate, so the question of how is answered for us easily. The question of why could have any number of answers. The tenant noted that the nothing was missing or damaged and nobody was hurt, so if the intention was to cause harm to a person or anybody’s property, it seems they abandoned it upon being noticed.”

“If I may interject,”

Shuichi had almost shut off completely if it weren’t for Rantaro interrupting Tsumugi’s spiel.

“It almost looks as though he’s lamenting.” Rantaro pointed out, reaching for one of the better-lit photographs for a closer look. He took a white ink gel pen from a pen holder on the meeting room desk and drew around the dark silhouette as best he could.

“See?” He said, setting the pen down and putting the image back to the centre of the table. “He’s holding his knees to his chest and seems to have his face in them. I’m convinced by your deduction that this is a wizard with the combination of the tenant’s testimony and your logic, but in regards to why he was up there – you might be jumping the gun to assume his intentions were anything malevolent. It would be better to not make assumptions for an answer to that question, I think.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re completely right Rantaro,” Tsumugi responded. “The question as to why is tangential right now. What matters is that the security threat level for Snowcrest has secretly been raised to its second highest level with this case making itself known to us and higher ranks of intelligence. We will be directing all of our resources to investigating this, effective immediately. Dismissed, please be ready and waiting at your desks for further instruction in five minutes.”

Shuichi began filing out of the room with his co-workers at Tsumugi’s command, mind completely blank.

_Kokichi had wandered off that far on the night their argument began and cried on someone’s roof._

_And intelligence knows._

When it rains, it _pours_.

“Hey, could I borrow you for a minute?” Rantaro seemed to appear from nowhere beside Shuichi, but he was in far too much disbelief to react to anything. The green haired man pulled Shuichi by the elbow into the break room.

It took an obscene amount of effort for Shuichi to begin behaving the way he normally would, lest he made himself appear suspicious. “What’s the matter, Rantaro?” It left his lips slightly monotonous, but it would have to work.

Rantaro took out a crumpled piece of paper from his waistcoat pocket and carefully unfolded it. He grinned. “Pocketed this one from underneath the one I drew over in the briefing just now,”

Shuichi let out a polite chuckle and immediately regret the gesture when he realised just how much anxiety made itself heard within it.

Rantaro took out a white gel pen next – Shuichi mentally noted that he hadn’t seen Rantaro slip that in his pocket at any point either – and leaned against the coffee machine’s counter as he drew over Kokichi’s dark silhouette again.

“…Here.” Rantaro said, several silent moments into his sketch. “Check this out.”

Shuichi wouldn’t need to put in half the effort Rantaro was into tracing out the shadows casted by the distinct bounces in Kokichi’s hair. He could see it clear as day from a distance. Rantaro’s careful work finished in a loop around Kokichi’s unmistakable figure, now several many times more Kokichi-like than his first sketch.

He couldn’t hold it in anymore, and laughed when Rantaro finished and looked up at him.

It wasn’t an amused laugh. It was one of complete and utter disbelief.

Rantaro looked concerned.

“I might be wrong, these photos are really dark.” He said quickly, trying to reassure Shuichi out of his visibly growing panic. “But I know the possibility is a massive shock to you. I imagine the thought of your partner being a warlock never even crossed your mind before this – why would it, right?”

Shuichi bit his tongue to keep the truth back.

“I know for sure I’ve never considered it with anybody I’ve ever gone out with.” He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Buuut, I’m telling you… no, I’m _warning_ you now because _she’s_ a lot more suspicious of everyone generally, and I have a feeling she saw what I saw.”

Shuichi followed Rantaro’s leading gaze out of the break room window to Maki’s cubicle, where she was sat speaking to Himiko about something – seemingly scolding the younger girl.

“It’s hard to say with her. She might jump to conclusions about you. You know what she’s like – the impatient type… Logical, but forgoes evidence if her gut feeling is strong enough. But hey,” Rantaro clapped a hand on Shuichi’s shoulder. “If it is him, I’m not convinced he’s a bad guy. I mean, we’d still have to take him out – that’s just how it is – but… I dunno. I feel like the logic doesn’t work if we try to assume he’s dangerous.”

“You sound like you’ve made your mind up that he is in those photographs,” Shuichi mumbled, blinking back the sting of tears that wanted to fall. Had those images been just a few degrees darker…

“I won’t lie,” Rantaro began, folding up the image again and slipping it back into his waistcoat pocket.

“I’m about 99% sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS WASN'T ON HIATUS BELIEVE IT OR NOT! i was suuuper busy but i've been writing reasonably consistently! not as much as i used to, but still consistently. it's just that i don't write chronologically, so some later chapters have progressed a lot more than chapters due next.
> 
> please leave comments, thoughts, feelings - that stuff reminds me that i have an audience to write for haha. as usual thank you for reading and i love you all <3 also i was wondering if anyone would join if i made a discord server for this and other saiouma ideas i've had but haven't written/won't write for one reason or the other? i'm fine if it's just like 7 of you but i think we'd need at least that much haha so let me know if anyone'd join that


	13. Building Walls Back Up

It wasn’t getting any better.

They’d spent the day with SWAT evacuating Flakes’ Road and setting up preservation measures. Unnaturally broken streetlights were inspected, interviews were taken, photographs were collected.

Shuichi did what he could do make himself look busy, but carrying the weight of his heart at that moment was honestly wearing him out too quickly to concentrate.

Not to mention, knowing his involvement with the case that was unfolding before him, this investigation just felt like waiting to be shot.

Shuichi figured Himiko’s case went without saying but she was legally required to truthfully declare her relationship with the ancient arts to the government in light of recent news.

“If you were an actual mage, the only applause you would get would be alongside the sound of a guillotine. Is that what you want, titless?!” Was what Miu had said after a visibly drained Himiko had returned with confirmation that she performed magic tricks for entertainment.

The poor girl was just a teenager that liked fantasy stories and magic tricks. Her innocence… wasn’t completely unlike Kokichi’s. Her lack of practicing ability didn’t make her any more innocent than Kokichi.

Shuichi knew he was alone with that logic, though.

The sun set earlier than usual that afternoon, but whoever was cursing Shuichi with misfortune after misfortune hadn’t called it a day yet.

Precisely 4 minutes before closing time, as the detectives finished up the last of their paperwork, turned off their computers and office phones, and prepared to leave, Maki walked over and thrust a pink sheet to Shuichi’s chest before making herself comfortable on his desk.

The header read in bold, _search warrant_.

There was a nervous chuckle. “M-Maki, what’s the meaning of this?”

“Suspicion of treason,” she said curtly, with her striking, cat-like eyes locked onto Shuichi’s own trembling pair.

“Raised by who…?”

“Me, approved by Tsumugi.”

Again, so calm and reserved. It did nothing to settle Shuichi’s growing panic and sense of betrayal.

“Though she approved it because she wants to see the inspection prove me wrong.” She continued, shrugging.

Shuichi swallowed. “I want to talk to a lawyer.”

“Sure thing. You can knock yourself out _after_ the search.”

She pointed out a date towards the bottom of the document, with the urgency box checked and stamped with the local police’s approval.

_Tomorrow’s_ date.

“That’s ridiculous. You need to push this date back,” Shuichi said firmly, but the tremble in his hands was giving him away.

“Why? What’s going to change if we do the search tomorrow or on – I don’t know – Friday?” Maki’s tone became demanding. “This is suspicious. You have something to hide, don’t you?”

“This _has_ to be illegal—”

“Except it’s not, considering the circumstances,” Maki continued over Shuichi. “We’re dealing with a potential sorcerer here. It’s a _national emergency_ but you’re certainly not behaving like it is. It’s really suspicious, Saihara.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow at six in the morning.” She finished when Shuichi found himself with nothing to say. She turned on heel and made for the exit.

* * *

Shuichi had procrastinated on going into his own house by staying seated in his car for 20 minutes after he’d parked outside, dreading facing his boyfriend under these circumstances and during a _fight_ , no less.

The odds were stacked up against him in such an impossible manner, right after everything was going so _well_ too. God must be real, and He must be really mad at Shuichi right now. That was the only explanation…

The sorcerer was surprisingly wide awake when he’d collected himself enough to head in, and Shuichi wasn’t sure if that made things easier or not.

“Uh, hi.” He said when he met Kokichi’s wide, red eyes that were dulled with sickness and fatigue upon walking in.

“Hi,” the sorcerer chirped back, offering a smile. “Hey Shumai, could you come and sit here please?” He said, sitting up and gesturing to a spot on the loveseat next to him where he had been resting. He was sitting with his knees to his chest in an achingly familiar posture, a blanket around his slightly trembling frame.

“…Please?” He repeated when Shuichi hesitated.

The detective eventually complied, seating himself right up against the armrest, as far from Kokichi as he could get.

“Um, I wanted to say I’m really sorry for Saturday,” Kokichi began. “And I’m not lying right now, okay? I mean it. I’ve been really horrible to you because… Well I thought about it, and like you said, I think I do have an inferiority complex. I’ll do my best to work on it from now so that I can be a better boyfriend… like you’ve been to me…”

Kokichi trailed off, searching Shuichi’s expression as though he was unsure the latter was even listening. It seemed the heartache Shuichi felt at those words hadn’t made itself apparent on his face, because yes, he’d said that, but he didn’t think the sorcerer would take it to heart…

“Saturday… would’ve been a really good day without the second half of it,” Kokichi continued when Shuichi didn’t say anything. “It’s not even that I didn’t think you’d take it like that, I just… well…”

“Yeah, forget it. Don’t worry about it.” Shuichi interrupted when he felt his eyes becoming wet. What good was an apology and promises for the future now?

Kokichi looked as though he wanted to say something else, but decided against it. Then his expression became weighted with some kind of other burden, but there was something far more pressing at hand and Shuichi couldn’t waste time prodding another meaningless monologue out of Kokichi when it seemed likely that it wasn’t going to make a difference for the speed bump ahead.

“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

“Y-yeah, I was going to mention something else about Saturday.” Kokichi said, looking several times more distraught than a moment ago. “S-someone saw me – well, they surprised me and the spell wore off for a second because of that, and they saw the colour of my eyes,” he reached out to grip at Shuichi’s sleeve in some kind of attempt to comfort himself.

Shuichi ended up stiffening, suppressing the urge to flinch away from him.

“I wanted to tell you earlier but I… and the things that were happening between us— Ah, but it’s not your fault… a-anyway I tried to cast a memory-wipe spell right afterwards but I set off the streetlights accidentally so I have no idea if I aimed right… I was worried all weekend—”

“You didn’t aim right,” Shuichi said curtly, interrupting again. “National intelligence knows there’s a sorcerer here. They’re coming to investigate this house _tomorrow_.”

Kokichi’s expression cycled between something unreadable, anxious and then… resigned.

“Ah… it’s over,” he said after a few beats of silence. “I can’t even lie about that, it’s really over for me. I can’t cast any spells while I’m like this…”

Shuichi hadn’t noticed until he’d said that – the sick boy’s shaking voice naturally drew attention to his face, and that’s when Shuichi realised his eyes were alternating between its usual shade of deep, piercing red, to a sickly, brownish green seaweed colour.

He couldn’t change the colour of his irises.

So it seemed it _was_ possible for the situation to get worse.

“Sh-Shumai… what… what do we do?”

“I… I think you need to leave,” he said, feeling his heart plunge at the sound of his own voice saying those words.

There was no rescuing the situation now. Had Kokichi been well and able to pull strings as he usually did, Shuichi was sure that the photographs would’ve been deemed too weak as evidence for further investigation. But Shuichi had told his co-workers that his boyfriend lived with him to cover for the time Kokichi had unexpectedly met Kaede and Rantaro and what followed – if Kokichi couldn’t perform magic and hide the colour of his eyes now, then they’re in trouble no matter what.

Kokichi being found here tomorrow meant the pair of them were going to die, but if Kokichi ran away… Shuichi would probably be arrested for suspicion of treason by harbouring an enemy of the country, but Kokichi would be safe.

The latter would minimise casualties. The latter would mean Shuichi could protect Kokichi and honour this failure of a relationship one last time. The latter was what Shuichi decided was going to happen.

Kokichi seemed significantly less enthused, however.

“Th-there’s nothing else…?” he said in a small voice, shuffling closer to Shuichi. “Shuichi, I love you…”

Shuichi couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Why did he have to hear those words for the first time under these circumstances?

“None of the options are great, this is the only thing—” Shuichi paused before his voice broke. “The only thing I can think of. You have to leave and… you can’t come back.”

Shuichi could _feel_ Kokichi’s heart shattering on top of his own, and the pain was unbearable.

“This isn’t fair,” Kokichi said, seemingly more to himself than anything else. Shuichi pulled the sorcerer’s hands down from his face, where he had been digging his fingernails into the soft pale flesh, leaving pink crescent-shaped indentations. His eyes welled up and his face creased into the most genuine expression Shuichi had ever seen since meeting him. “There’s… there’s nothing I can do. This is who I am, I can’t change no matter how much I want to. There’s no spell I can cast to just become _normal_ forever and my eyes won’t change no matter how much I try to cry the colour out…”

The purple-haired boy was sobbing so silently into his own knees that _holy shit_ Shuichi wanted to cradle his small, shaking form and god, he wanted to tell him everything was forgiven and that he loved him but… What good would any of that be now?

Shuichi had to protect his crumbling heart too… The more he distanced himself from the emotional tension in the situation, the better.

“Kokichi… let’s get you ready to leave.”

“Wait…” The sorcerer grabbed Shuichi’s sleeve as he got up from his seat – a gesture that made him flinch. The proximity between the two that Kokichi maintained in his desperate attempts to cultivate any sense of comfort from Shuichi who had already shut off his feelings kept threatening the detective’s already-weak resolve.

“Wait, please. I’m not ready… just not right now. Not yet,” He continued, shaking his head when he felt fresh tears spilling over again. Shuichi averted his gaze and switched off the painful chipping feeling in his chest from the sight.

He’s fine. Shuichi’s fine, and Kokichi’s fine.

Everything was fine.

“It can’t wait,” Shuichi said firmly, prying Kokichi’s weak grip off of him. “Kokichi, up until a few minutes ago we were in the middle of some pretty intense mutual silent treatment. You’ll be fine without me.”

Kokichi recoiled away from Shuichi and back into the loveseat. Shuichi wasn’t looking, so he didn’t see the disappointment in his eyes but _god_ did he hear it in his voice a moment later.

“It… it’s not that you don’t get it… you’re saying hurtful things on purpose, aren’t you? Is it because you’re still mad at me…?”

_It’s because I’m trying to protect us both, goddammit,_ Shuichi swat the thought dead on its way to his mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” He rasped one last time as Shuichi left the room.

* * *

Two hours later, and Kokichi was sitting in the passenger seat with a stuffed duffle bag bursting at the seams in his lap as Shuichi drove and drove and drove, following the Snowcrest Central train route, out of the city and into… the middle of nowhere, a few dozen miles away and across the entire length of the city.

Snowcrest Forests had originally stretched into the area here, so Shuichi had figured the ecosystem would’ve been similar enough for Kokichi to make his return to living on his own without having to readapt too much all while he’s sick.

Kokichi was quiet for the entire journey except towards the end, as Shuichi brought his car to a halt.

“Shumai, I was thinking… don’t you think I could maybe come back after they search your house and things settle a little bit? That way, it doesn’t have to be as miserable as this…”

There were a few moments of silence as gears turned in Shuichi’s head.

Kokichi didn’t understand the gravity of what was happening. He didn’t understand how badly Shuichi had implicated himself and that it was likely – no, it was _certain_ – that nothing was going to be the same tomorrow and that Kokichi won’t have a home with Shuichi to come back to.

If he were to begin explaining that, it was also certain that Kokichi would try to stop him.

So he decided to lie. He did learn from the best, after all.

“Shumai…?” Kokichi called softly when there was no response from Shuichi after some time.

“Don’t call me that anymore please,” Shuichi began as he undid his own seatbelt and then Kokichi’s. “Kokichi, honestly speaking, I really just don’t want to see you anymore.” His eyes were trained on a moth dancing around a streetlight outside the window on his side of the car, but he still caught the sight of Kokichi’s reflection in said window.

He willed himself to immediately forget what he saw.

“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble and I want my life to return to normal after all this is over,” he continued, pretending to be unfazed by the things that were coming out of his very own mouth. “That’s why you can’t come back.”

There was a silence before Kokichi spoke again. “Yeah…? W-well, thank you for telling me the truth. I really appreciate it.”

Unable to bear the weight of the tension in the car at that moment, Shuichi stepped out into the cold and walked over to the passenger’s seat and pulled open the door. He didn’t watch as Kokichi tentatively stepped out, yet caught sight of his shaky breath vapourising into a puff of white in his peripheral vision.

_This is so awful,_ Shuichi eventually realised he couldn’t deny any longer.

_He’s sick, being hunted and I’m leaving him alone in the middle of nowhere._

“Thanks for everything,” Kokichi said softly, trembling present in his voice. “Bye now.”

“Take care of yourself,” Shuichi found slipping from his mouth as Kokichi’s footsteps began to become distant. He wasn’t sure if the sorcerer heard, but it didn’t matter.

Shuichi sat in his car as Kokichi hobbled into the darkness, and stayed there until he couldn’t see him anymore.

He dropped his forehead against the steering wheel and closed his eyes. As if the image was burnt onto his retinas, he saw Kokichi’s wide, wet, desperate and afraid eyes from earlier that evening staring back at him.

He thought about how in all this time, he’d only seen Kokichi behave like he did that day _once_.

He’d given him an apology, opened up a little… It seemed like Shuichi had finally gotten him to trust him a little more.

_…What has he done?_

When morning came, Shuichi didn't resist arrest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man i have so many ideas for these two in terms of AUs/dynamics/roles they'd have but the only plot i can work on is this one,, which is good in a sense because i would hate to not finish this so i'm glad it's the only plot i can come up with and work on right now haha  
> i initially wanted this to be a very slow slow burn but judging from feedback i got, it wasn't working too well so i paced up. this storytelling pace is a little more natural for me too but sometimes it's more of a bad habit than anything else. hopefully it's not too jarring  
> aaaaand let the angst commence


	14. He's Been Through Worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it gets worse

The detention centre Shuichi was driven to wasn’t one that he was very familiar with.

He didn’t work particularly closely with the military after all.

It was a tall building, not too far from the western part of the city’s high street, but there was a few yards’ radius of empty land all around it. The blue lights overhead dazzled him on his way in, seized by wardens on either side of him as if the handcuffs weren’t enough.

He couldn’t quite gauge how far underground he was being taken, but he vaguely registered the obscene amount of time he’d spent on the elevator down.

There was already an interviewer waiting there when the elevator doors finally slid open.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Detective Shuichi Saihara,” she said, a smile on her face which seemed incredibly out of place considering the circumstances. His cuffs were undone and she gestured for him to sit across from her, before one of the wardens placed a glass of water on the table front of him.

“Let’s talk about your arrest. You’re here on suspicion of terrorism and treason by harbouring a sorcerer.”

Terrorism _and_ treason? Shuichi wasn’t sure why it surprised him anymore that things always managed to become worse than expected at every single interval of this increasingly bizarre situation.

“As a preface, please be aware that as with all cases, you are being treated as innocent until proven guilty. As such, there is no need for you to feel intimidated. Co-operate with our investigation honestly and to the best of your ability to see to your swift release given that you are innocent – as is your entitlement. Please sign here to waive your right to remain silent so that the interview may begin.”

She slid the clipboard she had in front of her across the table to Shuichi. The whole spiel was so obviously and eerily rehearsed to such particular extremes that it took Shuichi a moment to get his hands to stop shaking before he signed. Every single thing around him was screaming, _“hey Saihara, you’re at a Future Foundation top security military detention and investigation centre and you’re **guilty**.”_

And it was chipping away at whatever courage he’d come in with.

“Witness statements were provided by your co-workers – Detective Rantaro Amami and Detective Maki Harukawa. They confirmed that they have met the suspect, your partner, previously, and it is of their educated opinion that it is likely the silhouette in the images retrieved from security footage belong to him. To begin, I would like to confirm with you that the name of your partner is Kokichi Ouma. Is this correct?”

“…Yes.”

“Mr Kokichi Ouma was living with you for quite some time, is this correct?”

“Yes.”

“During this time, were you aware of his practicing ability?”

Shuichi looked the interviewer directly in the eye. “No.”

“Why was he not present at the property during the search despite the pair of you having lived together for some time?”

“He fled.” Shuichi shrugged. Not a complete lie.

“Do you know where to?”

“No.”

“Where did you meet this man and when did you take interest in him?”

Shuichi shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “At a bar and it was love at first sight.”

Her eyes flicked from her notes up to Shuichi.

“…Are you telling the truth?”

“Of course…”

“I will overlook this lie if you answer honestly now. I understand that not all of these questions may be comfortable to answer, but I assure you that they are all necessary.” Her eyes seemed to phase right through Shuichi. A bead of sweat slipped from his forehead.

“I… I _am_ answering honestly.”

“Will you consent to a truth serum injection?”

“I… huh?” _Truth serum??_

“In February of this year, you reported sightings of a sorcerer yourself and an early-stage investigation was conducted… Is this correct?”

_…Shoot._

_He’d completely forgotten about that._

“Yes, th-that’s correct… but _that_ case was closed due to a lack of evidence,” Shuichi blurted gracelessly. He probably sounded suspicious now especially considering he’d been backed into a corner but he didn’t care – as long as he could put together an argument that worked… “This doesn’t warrant re-opening that case. There’s no evidence of a connection between these two cases, so you can’t…” Shuichi trailed off. This wasn’t going to convince anyone.

“That is strange, Detective Saihara. If you doubt what you saw to this extent, why was it raised in the first place?” _Fuck._

“It’s not that I doubt what I saw,” Shuichi swallowed thickly. “It’s just as intelligence concluded back then; it could have been a prank or literally any explanation – maybe a second sorcerer, I don’t know – there’s just not enough evidence to make a judgment about it.”

The interviewer hummed. “Well. It is impossible that you cannot understand why the sighting in February would be of interest in investigating this case now. For that reason, I remain unconvinced. I would still like to employ the use of our truth serum to ensure you are co-operating to the best of your ability.”

“Wh… what’s the law around that like? I don’t want to hear it from _you_ ,” he added when she opened her mouth to answer. “You could say anything that suits you. I want to hear it from a lawyer. I don’t know anything about truth serums, I want to know my rights and the conditions for use—”

“The truth serums are relatively new technology developed by the Future Foundation and as such, the law around them is not currently defined in an approved legal framework,” She began.

“So you can’t force me to take it to complete this interrogation.” Shuichi interrupted before she had a chance to continue. “That’s it. It’s non-negotiable.” Shuichi put his hands in the air in a shrugging motion and closed his eyes.

_This couldn’t be happening._

“If you’d let me finish,” she said, a twinge of annoyance in her previous pristinely professional tone. “Our truth serums have been approved by executives in the Future Foundation for use in dire circumstances such as these. You do not have to consent to the procedure and we will not force you to take it, but without certainty that you are co-operating, it would be malpractice to let you go.”

“Detaining me until I consent sure does sound like coercion though,” Shuichi said in a falsely thoughtful voice. “You said I was going to be treated as innocent until proven guilty so why am I…” he trailed off again, knowing full well why his answers were being written off as unacceptable.

“Detective Saihara, perhaps a reminder of the severity of this case is in order?”

“Please, can you just leave me alone for a minute?” Everything felt like it was all coming to a deadlock around him. If he let this interview go on for any number of seconds longer, he would end up just proving his disloyalty to the Future Foundation and the country.

He put his face in his hands. This is where it all ends.

How did something so sweet, innocent and fleeting have such devastating consequences…?

When the interviewer opened her mouth again, her tone was surprisingly gentle.

“Detective Saihara, you are one of the Future Foundation’s dear students. We are aware and realise how you must feel about what appears to be you having been used and manipulated by a sorcerer to do his bidding just for him to flee at the end and leave you in this situation. We believe you are innocent, and we are on your side. We believe you have knowingly done nothing but your duty as our valued personnel. There just cannot be a shadow of doubt, so if you could give your statement in conjunction with the serum, we can get around to supporting you with moving forward.”

“…Show me which cell I’ll be staying in.”

* * *

The only indicators Shuichi had to confirm that time was indeed passing in solitary confinement was the incredibly nutritious and delectable gruel and bread he was given three times a day, the guards asking him if he was willing to co-operate yet once at the end of every day and the shower he was afforded once every other day.

By the fifth day, he’d needed to use the chalk underneath dozens of other imprisonments recorded on the wall.

Shuichi’s main issue up until that point was the boredom, honestly speaking. He wasn’t a picky eater and he didn’t need to eat much anyway – the meals he treated himself to in his day-to-day life especially as of late were elaborate just because 1) he _could_ , as in, he had the means, 2) he supposed it was healthier and 3) if he was going to be feeding Kokichi, it might as well have been good food.

So the impact of the prison meals on his mood was negligible.

But, Mother of God, the _boredom_. It went without saying there was nothing to do. He wouldn’t have complained to himself so much at that point if he realised what his _next_ biggest issue was.

The crippling loneliness.

His life had been lonely for the most part anyway – having grown up in an orphanage until he was 16 and landed training with Kyoko’s detective agency, which was when he relocated to his current (former?) property – it’s not like he had much of a sense of family except that of which he shared with other residents of the children’s home. Even then, he was largely outcasted so his first real sense of companionship was really…

With Kokichi.

He’d been able to cope without others up until lately because he _had_ to, but now that he’s felt the warmth and tenderness of someone else’s care and affection, he couldn’t just go back to not caring for what he lacked.

The thought of Kokichi was beginning to hurt now.

He wondered what the warlock was doing right now. Is he safe? Is he this bored and lonely too? Is he eating, sleeping and taking care of himself? Does he miss Shuichi as much as Shuichi misses him? Did he recover from that sickness yet? Shuichi thought about how he didn’t take the opportunity to help nurse him to health when he had it. The thought hurt. It’s probably a memory that hurts Kokichi more, though.

… _That_ thought hurt too. He’s sorry.

He’s really sorry.

By the twelfth day, Shuichi was talking to the ceiling.

Shuichi considered it, for just one moment.

Considered confessing. Giving away Kokichi’s location, pleading guilty and accepting whatever the worst sentence was. Hopefully it was execution.

Guilt seeped into his bones soon afterward. Wasn’t this many betrayals and this many failures enough? How does he manage to keep raising the bar for worst boyfriend of the year?

… _Boyfriend_. The word felt so juvenile and embarrassing. Was it still Shuichi’s right to use it anymore anyway? It certainly didn’t feel like he was anyone’s boyfriend anymore.

On the thirteenth day, Rantaro and Maki came to visit.

They were sitting beyond a glass screen and Shuichi could barely look at them underneath the dazzlingly bright blue light from above the two of them. The cell was significantly darker than this and his eyes had gotten used to it – especially since he spent most of his time sleeping anyway.

“You look terrible,” Maki drawled.

“I feel terrible,” Shuichi croaked out, underusage of his vocal cords adding an unpleasant grating quality to his voice.

“You should just take the drug, dude,” Rantaro commented and Shuichi was wondering why they’d even visited if it was just going to be like this. “We had to take it when we gave our statements to intelligence. It really wasn’t so bad. It just makes you a little woozy and you might throw up afterwards, but once it’s done, it’s done. I don’t know what you’re afraid of, there’s really nothing to it if you’re innocent – which I’m sure you are. We want you out here~” Rantaro smiled at the end of his sentence, his eyes forming crescents like the way… Kokichi’s used to.

“Is it so strange to not like being accused of lying while giving testimony and not wanting to take a shot of a drug that I don’t know about?” Shuichi said, exasperated.

Maki and Rantaro only stared at him blankly, as if to say _yes_.

“When the alternative is indefinite detention, then yeah, kinda,” Rantaro said eventually.

_Why are they here…_ Shuichi began wondering to himself when he found that this meeting was bringing him no comfort or relief. _They haven’t even asked me how I am. What’s the point of this?_

“It’s okay if you helped him without knowing, they won’t prosecute you for that,” Rantaro continued. “You just need to prove that you didn’t know, and the serum will help—”

“Are you two here on business?” Shuichi interrupted. As usual, Maki’s expression didn’t shift one bit at the surprising question. Shuichi caught Rantaro flinching, though.

“Well, _no_ , I’m not sure what you even mean by—”

The second time Rantaro was interrupted was by Maki. “Yeah, actually, we are.”

“Tomorrow will be a fortnight since you’ve been in detention, right?” She continued, ignoring Rantaro’s surprise. “They’re going to have a meeting to decide what should be done about your refusal to co-operate, and forgoing getting your consent seems like it would be pretty high up on the list. It’s not convenient for them to have you detained either, you know. And you’re the only outstanding piece of evidence they haven’t gotten around to making conclusions about.”

Shuichi laughed. “They can’t force a drug on me. That’s illegal.”

“…Since when have a few human rights abuses been seen as unacceptable for the Future Foundation’s pursuits?” Maki asked, and that’s when the gravity of the situation struck Shuichi. “Rantaro and I… came here to try and convince you to consent before it was done forcefully.”

“We get it if you’re scared,” Rantaro said. Shuichi didn’t meet his gaze. “Just… try and do the best thing for yourself.”

_It’s a lie_ , Shuichi thought to himself as he was escorted back to his cell. _They can’t do that. They wouldn’t do that… They’re on the people’s side. Maki and Rantaro are lying._

He curled up on the cold, firm mattress once the heavy cell door clattered shut.

“When’d they pick up that habit?” Shuichi asked the ceiling. “If they were any shorter and cuter, I would’ve thought I was talking to Kokichi with all that lying.” He mumbled.

…Kokichi, huh? The image of the ceiling started to become strangely blurry and distant.

“I miss him,” he choked out, feeling something breaking in his chest. “I miss him, I miss him…” He turned on his side and only when the movement rocked tears out of their delicate balance on his waterline did he realise he was crying.

“I miss him so much.”

* * *

Turns out, they _weren’t_ lying.

When Shuichi’s cell door burst open at god-knows-o’-clock, waking him from his feather-light slumber, and the first thing he registered in his sleep-drunk state was rough hands on his shoulders – naturally, he resisted.

It didn’t serve him well.

It doesn’t take much to knock Shuichi out – one blow to the head by a warden was even easier than a tranquiliser dart.

He woke up in another room, restrained in a metal armchair, hooked up to an IV with a translucent blue liquid in the drip pouch.

There was some kind of weight around Shuichi’s neck also, but it’s not that he could see it or reach to feel around it.

Once his eyes had adjusted to the light, he took the liberty of trying to look around him. He regret it immediately – what Rantaro said about the drug making you mildly woozy was an outrageous understatement.

Somewhere among the mess of his vision, he managed to pinpoint the image of that _woman_ again. He tried to focus on it until it became clear, and found that his gaze was being returned.

Behind her he also noticed… a different woman.

In the shadows was a slender figure, flowing silver hair and steely purplish grey eyes. Cold ones, entirely different from the rich, deep purple shade Kokichi would use when he changed the colour of his eyes.

Shuichi’s mind fixated on the idea of Kyoko being so unfortunate to have a pair of purple eyes and yet lack all the beauty of them that he’d seen elsewhere before his attention snapped back to the severity of the situation at hand.

What kind of divine punishment _is_ this? To finally meet Kirigiri under these circumstances… _why why why why why why why why??_

Kyoko moved to a desk to pick up some kind of control panel, and there was a strange whirring noise before Shuichi found himself crying out.

He belatedly realised that he’d taken a shock from the weight around his neck, and from there he figured it was some kind of electric collar.

“Uhhh, isn’t this… breaking international law?” Shuichi slurred as Kyoko handed the control panel to the interviewer from a fortnight (apparently) ago.

“Yes,” the woman said curtly. Kyoko retreated somewhere into the darkness silently.

“Why didn’t you begin with this?” He asked, raising his palms as far as he could against the restraints at his wrist. “Should’ve skipped the 14 days of solitary confinement and gone straight to torturing me.”

“…The solitary confinement _was_ torture, Detective Saihara. Our intention was never to be lenient with you. It is, however, our practice to keep our cruelty as covert as possible.” She said something so evil with such honesty that Shuichi was almost impressed.

“We didn’t think we’d need more than three days of it, but it seems you have greater mental fortitude than we believed.” She continued. “Or… The sorcerer truly means a lot to you. Regardless, thanks to us underestimating you for this long, we’ve lost much precious time. But – I’m sure we’ll make up for it. One could deduce from our first meeting that you’re guilty, that goes without saying. Now the objective is to uncover exactly the _extent_ of your guilt.”

Shuichi swallowed thickly and eyed the IV port taped to his hand. “You really are a special kind of bitch. The entire government’s like this, huh?”

“Please continue to call me names if it eases your pain. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be asking the questions from now. The sorcerer’s name is Kokichi Ouma, yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Kokichi Ouma was living with you for quite some time, yes or no?”

“Yes.” _Kokichi, I hope you ran away…_

“During this time, were you aware of his practicing ability?”

_“No,”… say “no,”…_

“Yes.”

“…Uh-huh.” Shuichi drew blood from how hard he bit his lip. “Why was he not present at the property during the search despite the pair of you having lived together for some time?”

“He fled.”

“Do you know where to?”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic,” she remarked, sitting up and smiling politely at Shuichi. He scowled in return.

“I’ll instruct for some treatment and a meal and you will show us this place. I’m sure your partner will be as happy to see you as we will be happy to see him.” She said, collecting loose sheets of paper together.

“He’s not that stupid,” Shuichi said desperately, racking his brain for anything true he could say that would still help protect Kokichi. “He’d have run away by now…”

“Perhaps,” she said before handing the stack of sheets to Kyoko, who then left the room. “We’ll find out tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i nyoomed this chapter. i wrote it so fast i edited it twice just cos i could. it was surprisingly fun and i guess it's natural to write the fun chapters faster.
> 
> i couldn't sleep last night so i ended up actually developing a potential plotline for another fic (not the same universe/roles) in my restlessness for after i finish this but i dunno when that will be. i cannot exist in a state that doesn't have a saiouma fic in the works or i will die. if you liked mr shuichi i-can't-recognise-or-process-my-feelings-god-help-me saihara and mr kokichi i'm-self-hating-so-i'm-hyperaware-of-any-hint-that-shuichi-doesn't-like-me ouma then i am happy to provide
> 
> i love these two so much cries
> 
> as usual tysm for keeping up and reading i love you all and i'm sorry for doing this to your boy (but it also brings me joy)
> 
> my confidence in my writing is generally pretty shit but now that we're this far in i'm kinda proud of this and happy about how it's come along. feelsgoodman


	15. (Don't) Run Away

“Now, now, Detective Saihara. You do look rather pathetic.”

“I don’t care, I don’t—” he heaved, breathing erratic as he kept up his laughably frail resistance against a pair of Future Foundation detention wardens that were currently trying to wrestle Shuichi out of the room. “I really don’t…”

It’d been a number of hours since Shuichi had been interrogated under the influence of the truth drug now, and they’d forced him to change out of the jumpsuit that had been given to him at the start of his imprisonment in order to change into something that resembled his day-to-day clothing.

He’d been forced to confirm the approximate co-ordinates of where he’d left Kokichi, and that’s when he overheard that _blasted_ woman - who Shuichi had gathered by now was one of Kyoko’s main assistants – mention to some kind of admin that she intended to have Shuichi act as bait to lure Kokichi out.

It was a foolproof plan. Which is why Shuichi was resorting to this kind of resistance.

“Come now,” her voice rang out again. “Do you really want your partner to see you in such a sorry state? Isn’t it humiliating enough to appear like this in front of your co-workers of so many years?”

Shuichi briefly looked in the direction of a glass panel that served as a window between the interrogation room and the corridor. A dozen familiar faces stared back at him. They were invited in at some point between the time they tortured answers out of Shuichi and right then to assist with the investigation, but since Shuichi’s difficult behaviour had the team thrown off-schedule (a small victory in Shuichi’s mind), they’d been asked to help break Shuichi into obedience.

He wasn’t sure if they were told not to emote or if the indifference on their faces was genuine, but _yes, you evil cow, this **is** humiliating enough_.

In a sudden, fleeting emotional frenzy, Shuichi kicked one of the wardens directly in the shin – hard.

“My, my…” his torturer said as both of the wardens backed off. Shuichi was confused for a split second before he saw her twist the knob on the control panel Kyoko had handed her earlier that day.

Shuichi found himself staggering backwards and onto the floor in a heap. A sharp cry died in his throat.

“That was 20 volts. The next will be 25. Will you stop resisting?”

Shuichi felt the skin on his neck tingle, and the thin muscle underneath spasm.

She hadn’t even given Shuichi the opportunity to gather himself before she administered the next shock.

“Stop,” he began to plead, his voice hoarse. “You’re going to kill me. Stop…”

He vaguely registered the sound of her scoffing when hot tears slipped from his eyes.

“There there, Detective. I’m sure your partner will comfort you when you see each other. You just need to stop resisting and you’ll get to see him soon – as will we all. Isn’t that what you want?” she cooed the last part, making Shuichi furious.

He swallowed a ragged breath. “I told you already… He won’t be there…” At this point, it felt like Shuichi was only trying to convince himself.

“The next will be 30!”

“Wait! Please,” Shuichi rasped. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it… Please just st… stop.”

“Aww,” she said, turning towards the back of the room where Kyoko emerged from the darkness.

“I was hoping for a few more rounds. He gives up too easily.” She pouted. Kyoko finally broke her steely silence, speaking the first words Shuichi had ever heard her say in person.

“That’s enough,” The silver-haired woman spoke authoritatively. “Don’t forget why we do these things. There’s no time to waste. Let us proceed.”

* * *

The journey to the forests was frighteningly quick.

The reason why became apparent when Shuichi picked up his head from his hands long enough to notice through the windscreen that the roads had all been closed off, with only government personnel having permission to use them.

The stage was all set.

Shuichi was in one of _twelve_ vehicles heading in Kokichi’s direction – he knew that the team that usually did field investigations, Maki, Kaito, Rantaro, Gonta and Tenko were in one car with Tsumugi, but the rest were filled with various Future Foundation and SWAT staff that Shuichi didn’t know.

He had the pleasure of sharing a car with his torturer on one side of him, a warden on the other, a second warden driving and Kyoko in shotgun.

(The circumstances of finally meeting and even _sharing a car_ with Kyoko was still so devastatingly ironic, but Shuichi’s world had crumbled so many times by this point that it was hard to see it as anything but funny now.)

Shuichi hadn’t cared enough to take mental note of anything about the woman that had been put in charge of Shuichi’s suffering, but now that he was sitting next to her for a suffocating 20 minute car ride, he was forced to acknowledge a sickly sweet strawberry smell coming off of her long, thick ginger ponytail.

Kokichi was years ahead changing the scent of their shampoo from strawberry to apple all that time ago.

_…Kokichi…_

“…This is so cruel,” Shuichi couldn’t help but mumble, feeling his eyes becoming wet again. “I’m telling you that this is where I left him, you can go in and arrest him… Why do I have to…” he trailed off when he felt his voice about to break.

The woman next to him sighed. “Firstly, you could have led us to an ambush.”

Shuichi began to protest but she continued to speak over him. “Secondly, the sorcerer isn’t going to show himself to twenty officers dressed in Future Foundation uniform. You know this Saihara, please don’t make me waste my breath on more stupid questions.”

The car was beginning to slow, and Shuichi could tell they were here.

His heart rate spiked.

“…Fix your collar.”

Shuichi looked up to the source of the voice to find Kyoko with her _freezing_ cold gaze set on Shuichi through the car’s inner mirror.

He swallowed, and obeyed. He’d left his top button undone in hopes that if Kokichi was still there, he’d maybe see the hunk of metal around his neck and figure out that Shuichi wasn’t there because he wanted to be, and that it probably wasn’t safe to come out.

Of course Kyoko would have seen right through that.

As he stepped out of the car on shaking legs, Shuichi made one final prayer. A prayer that Kokichi took their last conversation to heart – that he believed in the impossible idea that Shuichi hated him and would never willingly come back to see him again.

That cruel lie was the only thing left that could protect him.

“Detective Saihara, if I may speak to you,”

Shuichi flinched sharply. It was Kyoko’s voice again.

What does she _want_?? She’d been present for a good portion of Shuichi’s imprisonment and subsequent torture, but she’d mostly been letting whoever that other woman was do all the heavy lifting. Up until then, he’d only heard her voice muffled by distance when she was speaking to others in the room – today was the first time he was being addressed directly.

“I think you should know that your charges are likely to be absolved as long as we capture the sorcerer today.”

…

_…Huh?_

“The law around harbouring practitioners of the ancient arts was written during The Tragedy. It is outdated. Naturally, I’ve looked at the details of the case thoroughly. During your time together, there was no evidence of magic criminal activity – that is, harm by supernatural means to people or property. To charge you with terrorism based on that is moot. As for treason, well, that can be overlooked by bringing him to us.”

Only a gust of wind filled the silence that followed.

Was this supposed to be… _good_ news??

“I have heard only good things about you from Tsumugi ever since you joined my agency as a teenager,” she continued in Shuichi’s stunned silence. “I would not be opposed to you keeping your position there.”

“Kyoko, tell me this…” This _wasn’t_ good news, he had decided. If he was to lure out the most precious person to him to his demise, Shuichi could only accept lifelong punishment in return. “What’s going to happen to Kokichi after he’s arrested?”

“Detainment. Not execution,” Kyoko said curtly, as though she’d read his mind. As expected of Hope’s Peak’s Ultimate Detective, he supposed.

“That would also be unnecessary at this point in time. Frankly speaking, detainment would be for his own good. With no other of his kind and the fear of sorcery instilled in the public since The Tragedy, he unfortunately wouldn’t be able to live an ordinary life alongside you. And we _do_ still need to keep everything related to sorcery under surveillance – that’s not up for debate considering what happened only twenty years ago – but as long as he doesn’t resist dangerously, there would be no reason to hurt him.”

She flung a section of her hair that she had been twisting as she spoke behind her shoulder. “In fact, with good behaviour, he could live quite comfortably. You can even visit him, if you’d like.”

Shuichi swallowed. He’s _definitely_ going to resist at first but once he calmed down… Would Kokichi be okay with this?

It seemed like a good option for him… almost _too_ good.

“…How do I know you’re not lying to me right now?”

“I can repeat everything I’ve said under the influence of truth serum later if need be. For now, I’ll need your trust.”

“Ms Kirigiri, if I may disturb you—” Tsumugi, who had begun to approach Kyoko at some point earlier but awkwardly stopped some distance away so as to not interrupt her conversation with Shuichi, seemingly now couldn’t wait any longer.

“Yes, Tsumugi, I know.” She turned back towards Shuichi and gestured towards the rows of trees. “Well… Whenever you’re ready.”

* * *

There was newfound optimism pulsing through Shuichi’s system with every beat of his heart on his way into the forest where he’d left Kokichi.

He’d looked behind him once before he slipped through the first layer of foliage, and the dim, pale light that infiltrated from beyond a layer of thick evening cloud reflected off of Kyoko’s hair in a way that made it look like she had a halo over her head.

Blinded by desperation up until then, he failed to notice that she was _still_ the very lifeline that had kept him afloat in his childhood.

Everything… _everything_ was going to be fine.

…Yet, there was still some kind of sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, some kind of dread that was tugging at Shuichi’s disobeying limbs and trying to get him to turn back. It was like some 1% of him still doubtful, still unconvinced, still afraid, was fighting mercilessly against the 99% of him that was full of hope.

Shuichi swallowed down the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong and once again looked over his shoulder. He was too far into the forest at this point to see the full team by their cars outside, but against the deep green and brown of leaves and soil was a wall of agents – a number of SWAT personnel, two medical assistants, Maki equipped with a crossbow, and the others behind her.

…He figured he’d best focus on watching where he was going and finding Kokichi.

He’d called out the sorcerer’s name a few times to no avail but some ways into the search, Shuichi ended up stumbling into a clearing.

The team waited back beyond the cover of vegetation while Shuichi got a closer look.

There was a small stream running through it, draining into a large lake, with wildflowers growing along its course. The soil underfoot gradually transitioned to pebbles as Shuichi stepped further in, and the sky was largely visible through a thin layer of stretched branches belonging to surrounding trees.

…He could feel it.

Kokichi was somewhere here.

As Shuichi opened his mouth to call his name, he froze to another sense of foreboding – this one far more powerful and petrifying than earlier.

He felt a small, silent gust of wind through his hair and across his skin which didn’t seem to reach the trees, he noted, watching their unnatural stillness.

The feeling was becoming so overwhelmingly uncomfortable that Shuichi began to turn to leave, before that was disrupted by a fast shadow before him, and then behind him in his peripheral vision and then… A familiar weight on his back, sending two tangled bodies tumbling into the ground.

“It’s Shuichi, right?? It’s really you?” Came an excited voice from behind him as Shuichi tried to gather himself on the floor. He sat up, holding his throbbing head where he’d hit the ground. “Oh shoot, does it hurt? Hold on, I’ll get that for you.”

He felt the owner of the voice’s presence shift from behind him to in front of him, gently placing a hand over his own, before the pain stopped.

For some reason, when Shuichi looked up to meet Kokichi’s ecstatic gaze, he was only filled with dread.

“I missed you! I hoped you’d come back. Don’t apologise, I already forgive you. Or! Maybe I’m lying about that and I’m just saying so to lower your guard so I can exact revenge on you later. Or not!” He chattered delightedly, placing his cold hands on either side of Shuichi’s face.

“No, really, I promise I’m not – I don’t feel like lying right now. I’m too happy to see you.” Kokichi’s grin was almost too big for his face before his eyesmile faded and his large, bright red eyes became visible. “You look so startled… Did I scare you?”

“Kokichi, I—” Shuichi began, abruptly stopping himself.

Stopping himself from saying _I want you to run away, **now**_ , that is.

Because that’s _not_ what he wants, right?

He _wants_ what Kyoko promised, so he needs to co-operate.

…Why does something feel gravely misjudged?

There was a sharp sound, a flash of something quick, fast and _dangerous_ , and a flurry of Kokichi’s clothing as the force of the arrow fired from Maki’s crossbow sent him off of Shuichi’s lap and onto the floor in a heap.

The ambush was _fast_ , but Shuichi soon felt stupid for being surprised about that.

Kokichi only just had the opportunity to yank the arrow out before Kaito tackled him from behind, pinning him down with a knee to the spine.

Maki walked over relatively leisurely, loading her next arrow and aiming the crossbow directly between Kokichi’s eyes in a warning. It pained Shuichi to note that the gesture settled the warlock’s struggling underneath Kaito’s weight pretty quickly.

He pretended not to see the panicked tears spilling onto his face in that position.

_He’ll be fine. This is all for the best… right?_

He heard Rantaro give the order for SWAT to come in and proceed with arrest from somewhere behind him before said detective helped Shuichi to his feet. Kyoko had also made her way in at some point and put a hand on his shoulder.

“You did well,” she said, and the praise, from _her_ of all people, made Shuichi feel lightheaded.

_Yeah… He did well._

_…Right?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firstly, this chapter was supposed to be an extra 600 words or so but i decided THAT cliffhanger was going to be GENUINELY unkind and might've even made people mad LMFAO so i cut it short. i'm still nyooming which is typical of me, i write 30k words in one go, disappear for 6 months, come back and repeat but honestly i'm not even mad because i'm rly proud of myself for committing in the end and being this close to finishing this after so long since with that sort of inconsistent writing pattern, it's hard to finish things and i've never written something more than like 16k words because of it
> 
> my original intention was to make the ff and kirigiri the type of antagonists that you lowkey think are kind of cool, like they're assholes but they're kinda reasonable but i actually hate the future foundation as they appear in the anime, especially chisa (who is the person kyoko's assistant is based on - i was going to call her chisa instead of making her nameless, but chisa in this universe died more or less the same way she died in canon and even if that's not explored, i just didn't feel like making chisa kyoko's assistant and then raising a bunch of questions about the history in this and then not be bothered to answer it). and yeah i really hate the ff and it just ended up showing so much LMAO but i'm making them kinda cool again like i intended. kirigiri is one of my fave girls also, felt bad for letting shuichi grill her
> 
> with that said, i've been feeling really great about this fic and i feel like it's been a massive success in regards to me meeting my personal goals for it. i feel like i've improved tons and i had fun and i'm actually FINISHING it. also i've been wondering lately if anyone has been keeping up with this since it began in january. if you have, i am so sorry for those months in between where i dropped off the face of the earth but also THANK YOU SO MUCH for bearing with and staying with me this long. a massive thank you to people who came and set up their huts in the middle of it too, and people who are new. i'm really happy to have you *all* here
> 
> next chapter is already finished at 3k words or something bc like i said NYOOM BUT i'm going to upload it in 5 days to give people a chance to read this one and bc that was my original posting pattern if you check the chapter index and compare the dates for the first several chapters before i went off the rails
> 
> lastly,,,,,,,, i said i had ideas for another fic right? yeah i accidentally made an entire skeleton for it and am currently writing up a first draft. when you guys see the synopsis you're gonna say "this shit again? really? jfc bitch write something else" but i can't help it, saiouma x difficult circumstances is my otp. i'm gonna try and get that up soon but it won't have my full attention until this is finished. i won't talk about it too much here bc i'm not gonna assume that cos you liked this fic, you'll like my other stuff but you know. eeeeeeexcitement. and that's all.
> 
> thank you all for reading again as usual, if you read these long-ass notes you're a real one as well - i leave these here bc i don't talk to anyone about my writing or anything, i do it all by myself bc all my pals are into other stuff so i only really have you guys ahjgdkf i also respect it if you don't read these cos shit's long. yep that's all for real now love you all


	16. The Sacrifices We're Willing To Make

“You did well,” she said, and the praise, from _her_ of all people, made Shuichi feel lightheaded.

He’d opened his mouth to say _thank you_ , or anything, really, but Kokichi beat him to it.

“W-Wait,” His small, trembling voice earned the attention of the two detectives. “Sh-Shuichi, you…”

Frightened red eyes darted between Shuichi and the silver-haired woman. “You brought them here…”

Shuichi… didn’t say anything.

Of course he didn’t, what could he possibly even say to that to make the situation look any better? _Relax, I know my co-worker just shot you in the arm and my other co-worker has you pinned down while my first co-worker points a crossbow at your face and there’s a number of strange men in tactical gear emerging from the forest I told you that you’d be safe in and you have no agency in this but I swear this is all good, going according to plan, and I still love you and am acting in your best interests._

It all just looks so _bad_ and _feels_ even worse.

Kokichi was visibly crestfallen at Shuichi’s lack of an answer, and it made the detective’s rapidly thumping heart _ache_.

_I’m sorry,_ went Shuichi’s unvoiced sentiments. _Just hang in there for me a bit longer. I’m so sorry._

It became evident that Shuichi’s wistful heart wouldn’t reach Kokichi.

Though it’s not a surprise – it’s not like Kokichi could gather from the reality in front of him that Shuichi’s intentions were anything but malevolent.

So Shuichi had been mentally prepared for _some_ resistance, or even seeing Kokichi get a little hurt.

_Nothing_ , no amount of foresight, not even if it were magically granted to him, would have prepared Shuichi for what happened next, though.

First, there was laughter. It began as a giggle – not an amused or adoring giggle that Shuichi had become familiar with and gotten to love, but one full of disbelief and heartbreak.

Shuichi tried to ignore it. There’s nothing he could do or say right now. Nothing… He’s helpless.

The laughter evolved and became manic, and only got worse when Maki and Kaito tried to restrain him further.

“What’s the hold up?” Kyoko’s tone became urgent as she directed her attention to the SWAT team. “Arrest him while he’s not resisting.”

Two officers began to do as they were told, approaching a hysterical Kokichi who was now lapsing between laughter and uncontrollable sobbing.

The moment Kaito took his knee off Kokichi’s back in order to pull his wrists into a position in which he could be cuffed, the sorcerer slammed his palms down into the ground, sending everyone within a few metres’ radius – Shuichi and Kyoko included – flying.

Kaito was launched the furthest – Shuichi had lost sight of him entirely though it was in part due to the fact that his vision had been disturbed by his own tumble and the fact that the impact had generated a smokescreen of dust and debris. Kyoko was on the floor beside him – Gonta had saved them from impact with the floor and was currently supporting them into an upright position, and Maki had been sent sailing straight into Rantaro and the two were in a heap beside a group of SWAT officers.

Neither Shuichi nor Kyoko had a chance to orient themselves before Shuichi was snatched by the collar straight out of Gonta’s arms and into the air by an electric-fast, agile shadow, which Shuichi eventually processed as Kokichi’s silhouette.

The next thing Shuichi processed was where Kokichi was _going_.

He was flying at _breakneck_ speed towards the lake, which was reflecting the rapidly departing clouds overhead on its still surface.

Said surface didn’t remain still for long after Shuichi had spotted it, since Kokichi dived headfirst, with Shuichi still in his grip, into it. There was a hideously loud crashing sound on impact, distorted by the change of pressure in Shuichi’s ears as he was forced down several feet underwater.

It didn’t take Shuichi long to realise Kokichi was trying to murder him.

Some ways into their descent, Shuichi began to fight back. He wasn’t concerned for how futile the resistance would be – naturally, he’d take any chance to survive. Besides, Kokichi was so _small_ , and as Shuichi had learnt during his time with him, his wizardry had its limits and he had little to rely on in terms of physical strength so it’s not that it was _impossible_ that Shuichi might’ve been able to overpower him.

Unsurprisingly, that chance was very slim indeed.

Shuichi had gotten far enough to twist one arm behind Kokichi’s back which took the latter by surprise for a moment, but he severely mistimed his attempt to grab the sorcerer’s other wrist, allowing him to easily administer a blast of water to Shuichi’s torso and wriggle free as the detective reeled.

The effort to restrain him made the sorcerer _furious_. Shuichi tried to cry out when he felt Kokichi’s fingers in his hair, but only water filled his lungs.

Shuichi belatedly realised that was probably his intention, and fought against his reflexes to stop himself from trying to scream. He _was_ trying to drown Shuichi after all, so the detective had better try and hold onto any little breath he had.

But… it hurt. Everything _hurt_ , the burning in his lungs, his throat, Kokichi’s grip on his hair and his wrist as the pair of them sank further underwater, the fact that _Kokichi was trying to kill him_ , the fury and hatred in his eyes, how all of this had gone so horribly _wrong_ – it was all so _painful_.

He felt his eyes burn with the slight acidity of the water around him, burning still until they felt like they were going to melt, until it… stopped?  
  
In some kind of final instinctive struggle, Shuichi somehow managed to unnaturally push Kokichi off of him with a blast of water that had generated from _somewhere,_ launching the pair towards the lake’s water surface again.

There was an eruption of water as Kokichi sailed out of the lake and into the air, orienting himself several feet above the ground with relative ease compared to Shuichi who was desperately paddling towards land once he’d managed to finally catch his breath.

Shuichi slowed down once he’d reached the shallower rim of the lake, taking a moment to try and calm down. Gonta had rushed towards him but stopped several paces ahead of him, gasping in shock when he met his gaze.

He then noticed he was remarkably… hungry?

There was laughter again. Kokichi’s. It was crazed laughter, but the emotion behind it was still so comprehensible. He was hurt, betrayed, heartbroken – Shuichi could feel it all. He _understood_ , but there was just nothing he could _do_ to make the other understand it was all supposed to be _okay_.

What Kokichi said next as he landed from flight was, however, comparatively incomprehensible.

“Those look terrible on you,” was what he said with a sinister grin on his face – the type of grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

Kokichi didn’t resist when two SWAT officers tackled him and began to cuff him, but his stare remained intensely fixed on Shuichi.

“To _think_ I found a feeling as mythical as love within myself for such a disingenuous, insecure, two-faced evil _bastard_ like yourself, Saihara,” he spat as SWAT wrestled him away. “I hope this turns out to be a fate worse than death for you.”

_What is he… talking about?_

Shuichi turned his attention back to Gonta as Kokichi was taken away, to find that he was still rooted to the spot. Kyoko appeared behind him a few moments later before she joined him in his shock, frozen in place with her eyebrows drawn together in a frown that Shuichi couldn’t understand.

“…Detective Amami, call for the second SWAT vehicle. Now,” she ordered, and Shuichi saw Rantaro’s distant figure disappear beyond a layer of trees at the instruction.

_What the hell is going on?_

In his confusion, Shuichi glanced over his shoulder to make sure the strange behaviour wasn’t directed at something _else_ in the lake.

He was greeted with his reflection in the water’s surface and that’s when he understood.

“Kyoko, I…” Shuichi began after some bewildered silence, but stopped quickly afterwards. He was _speechless_ , how was this _happening_? “Kyoko, please believe me. I wasn’t hiding this, I… He did something to me.”

“No, I know. I believe you.” Kyoko pursed her lips. “You have to go back to headquarters with SWAT. It’s protocol. But we’ll deal with this first thing when we get back.”

“Kyoko, what’s going to happen to me?” Shuichi felt something in him surrender. The only thing he could do now was seek peace of mind from the appointed judge and executioner of sorcerers herself.

“I can’t say,” she said unhelpfully, turning away from him. “But… I may have to withdraw my promises to you.”

Shuichi accepted it.

“My conditions were that the sorcerer would be captured without casualties. And there was a violent attack. I will again consider the option to terminate his life.”

Shuichi accepted that, too.

There’s nothing left to fight for now.

Kokichi hated him. Shuichi had no future. The only option now was for him to finally submit.

* * *

There was no telling what time it was now but the sky was pitch black by the time they’d returned to headquarters and Shuichi was fucking _exhausted_.

He was still soaked from the events of earlier that day with his saturated clothes clinging to his body and making him shiver when SWAT escorted him to a cell.

He was given a change of clothes and swiftly taken to a room even _further_ underground than the ones Shuichi had been kept in.

Kyoko was already there when the elevator doors slid open, along with the assistant that had carried out his interview and directed all of his torture. Shuichi was strangely becoming accustomed to that woman’s presence now, as much as he hated her.

“There’s one cell here that was moved from a special detainment facility after The Tragedy. It was specifically designed to contain sorcerers,” Kyoko told him as they walked down what felt like a never-ending corridor with rooms on either side. “There used to be many, up until they weren’t necessary to keep around anymore. But a few still exist in certain buildings, for cases such as these. Spells can’t be cast within the walls. Kokichi would have been able to feel his abilities deactivate when he was put in.”

Shuichi said nothing in response, and the rest of the journey there was done in silence.

Finally, the pair of them reached a room that looked very much like the one Shuichi had been in only this morning – except he was _outside_ the cell this time.

The cells in government buildings with detention facilities like this one were built into rooms furnished with desks and computers, with a large glass screen separating the cell and the room. The architecture was designed to allow for surveillance and interrogation of the prisoner by staff members where necessary.

Stepping into the room behind Kyoko, Shuichi found Kokichi perched on the floor behind the glass panel, clad in a white straitjacket and bruises splattered across his cheekbones that matched his hair in colour.

He was grinning ear-to-ear when Kyoko seated herself and gestured for Shuichi to do the same beside her.

It looked like an entertained smile, but Shuichi knew the warlock well enough at this point to know it was masking unfathomable pain.

Kokichi was surprisingly the first to speak. “If I wasn’t under the influence of your surprisingly well-made truth serum, I would have sarcastically told you that you’re my favourite agent here, Kyoko Kirigiri. Unfortunately I can’t, so I have to tell you straight that I fucking _hate_ you.”

“That’s fine, Kokichi Ouma. Your words don’t wound me.” She said simply, sifting through a stack of paperwork in preparation for an interview.

Shuichi felt sick. The tension in the room was suffocating.

Kyoko started up a recording device. “You must be tired and hungry. Let’s begin; the faster this is done, the faster you can rest. Time is of the essence. First of all, please explain what you did to Detective Saihara.”

Kokichi scoffed. “Can’t you tell? I awakened his sorcery.” The unsettling grin on Kokichi’s face grew wider. “Surely you’re already familiar with the old _stress-n-duress_. One of your seniors in this dumpster fire of an organisation wrote a whole book on it.”

“…Are you talking about the awakening of Izuru Kamukura? The research for that book was never completed—”

“Oh, but it was.” Kokichi interrupted. “There’s only two conditions for awakening sorcery in a person. Despairing life force and a stress stimulant that corresponds to the nature of the subject’s life force. You’d already figured that out when that book was published,” Kokichi’s grin seemed to grow wider. “Poor sod, he just wanted to be part of something bigger than him, and his government – who he trusted to protect him – took advantage of that. Knew the asshole was struggling with his self-esteem, figured out the required conditions, put him through all those surgeries and all that experimentation and finally got that special gene in _all_ of us to snap.”

There was a pause. Good to know Kyoko was as speechless as Shuichi right now. “So you are aware that the sorcery gene is present in every single human being. This is top secret information that took years of research, and this knowledge was not even widespread among witches and warlocks. How do you know this much?”

“Mr Saihara over there took on quite the lengthy history project during our time together. He didn’t seem to be very interested in the only interesting book he brought back during that entire time.”

…Shuichi recalled. The evening after Shuichi had taken Kokichi out for the first time, he’d read about the Future Foundation’s human experiment but was too distracted by his growing feelings for the mage to pay any real attention to the text in front of him.

“If you read that book then you would be aware of the largely secret Hinata Law, which outlaws awakenings and carries hefty sentences – even execution.”

Kokichi’s grin didn’t waver. “Yep.”

“Okay. What did you mean by _despairing life force_? When did you learn that Detective Saihara’s life force was _despairing_?”

“I could tell the moment I met him that… _Detective Saihara_ was a little bitch,” Kokichi said bluntly. “I’d never seen life force so weak before. Abandonment, I assumed.” Kokichi cackled at that and it _hurt_. “There’s no more to despairing life force than what you already learnt from studying Junko Enoshima’s motives. When a person is miserable and broken, their life force weakens, shrivels up and tears in places. It makes them more susceptible to magical influence. In that state, you can get people to kill each other or themselves, you can feed on their life force or use it to perform magic, you can manipulate their thoughts and feelings – the list goes on.”

“Did you try take advantage of Detective Saihara’s despair any time other than today?”

“Well, none of those things. He’s a fuck-up all by himself, he doesn’t really need me to ruin his life.” Kokichi answered, his sinisterly smiling eyes locking onto Shuichi for the first time since the interview began. “Buuut, I did try to awaken his sorcery one other time before today.”

“Why was that?”

“There was a spell I was interested in casting, but it took two sorcerers.”

“What spell was it that you were interested in?”

The smile that had been plastered on Kokichi’s face this entire time finally fell. “Should’ve expected that question. I didn’t elaborate because I don’t want to fucking tell you, but I guess I have to.” He paused. “There’s a spell. It suppresses the magical ability of both the sorcerers involved. It’s the only process that opposes awakening that exists.”

“Why did you want to cast this spell?”

There was another scoff. “Wow, you really are the dumbest bitch I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. I seriously thought that title would’ve stayed with Saihara.” The grin returned to his face.

…He _really_ seemed to hate Shuichi now.

“Why would I want to disable my sorcery? In a world like this one? Where people only needed to take one look at me to make up their mind about what I’m like? I wanted… I wanted a simple, normal life with Shuichi, where I could stand by his side proudly without needing to hide. I wanted to cast that fucking spell because I loved him.” He kept his eyes on Kyoko as he said that, as though just looking at the detective was going to break him.

Shuichi felt his heart grieve.

“It seems you failed the first time. Why?”

“My conviction wasn’t strong enough. I felt guilty for betraying him.”

“What exactly was it that you did?”

“Dropped him into a river,” Kokichi said casually. “Shuichi’s stress condition is water-related. He had to believe he was going to drown. But watching him flail like a fish out of water – or like a Saihara _in_ water, I suppose – was genuinely heartbreaking. So I went and fished him out far too early.”

“You… dropped Detective Saihara into a river during your time together?” Kyoko repeated dryly, looking between the two of them.

“Yep.” Kokichi confirmed, popping the ‘p’. “He was so mad about it that he didn’t talk to me for three days.”

Kyoko directed her gaze at Shuichi again as though to ask if what he was saying was true, and the latter nodded in confirmation.

“Me being alive the way I am is a crime and me trying to atone for it in my own way is a crime too. What the hell is it that you want me to do?” Kokichi had said it so quietly, Shuichi could’ve missed it. The warlock seemed much calmer and more subdued now that he’d confessed to everything.

“…No further questions.”

There was some silence after that, filled only by the sound of Kyoko shuffling the sheets of paper in front of her. She stood up some time later, picking up the recording device and turning it off before turning to face Shuichi.

“Shuichi, your eyes did not deceive you in that lake. Your irises _are_ crimson, and your practicing potential has been awakened,” she bowed her head slightly, almost apologetically. “As such, it is protocol that you spend your time overnight in one of these anti-magic cells. And as I mentioned – there are very few left. You will have to stay the night here.”

“Oh, no. Find him another cell,” Kokichi’s voice rang out from beyond the glass panel. “You could probably use an ordinary one honestly – he might have the potential now but I doubt he really has the ability to pull anything off yet, as stupid as he is and all.”

“That’s quite enough,” Kyoko responded. “I will be the one making decisions here.”

“It’s alright, Kyoko. I can stay here,” Shuichi said.

It was actually rather preferable. There’s so much he needed to tell Kokichi…

“I’m warning you – if you leave him here with me overnight,” Kokichi’s eyes seemed to swirl with malice, “I _will_ tear him to a million bloody shreds.”

Knowing that was said under the influence of truth serum, Shuichi’s nerves were screaming at him to beg for another cell. He ignored it.

He needed this chance to talk to him, no matter what. Even if he died at Kokichi’s hands before he’d gotten the chance to say a word, he’d be glad he even tried.

“You’ll do no such thing if you value your life, Kokichi,” Kyoko said firmly, approaching the door and gesturing for Shuichi to follow her.

Kokichi didn’t hesitate with his next line. “It’s a good thing I don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapters are titled now, which i have decided i am never doing again because i am awful at titling things and i hate how it turned out but i think at this word count, it was necessary
> 
> you can now thank me now that you know what the cliffhanger for the last chapter was supposed to be before i decided it was too cruel akgjdhfgd i decided to answer a large amount of the questions you're supposed to have within the same chapter of raising them. remaining questions are probably answered in the next chapter so please hold em til then
> 
> chapter count is now definite, the next chapter is ready but the one after that is going to be long since it's the ending chapter so idk when that'll be ready
> 
> i promise there's prison fluff, don't lose hope just bc kokichi's gone a bit apeshit


	17. Forgiveness

“Kokichi, can we… can we talk?”

“No. Fuck off.”

Shuichi had asked the warden that came in to feed the pair of them what time it was, and he’d gotten the answer _1:14am_.

That was half an hour ago.

Despite all his threats, the warlock seemed to be overcome with exhaustion after Kyoko had left, and hadn’t even looked in Shuichi’s direction. They’d undone the clasps on his straitjacket so he could feed himself so there was nothing stopping him from attacking Shuichi, but he’d just curled up into a ball into a corner of the room, as far from the detective as he could possibly get.

Something in Shuichi hated this more than the idea of being murdered at the other’s hands right now. It reminded him of Kokichi’s last few days at Shuichi’s residence and Shuichi _hated_ it – that had been the start of everything going wrong and the tension paired with the painful resemblance to that memory made the detective feel unspeakably nauseous.

“We should definitely talk, Kokichi.” He insisted, desperate to fill the maddening silence. “I don’t want to do this again, it’s not fair—”

“ _Not fair?_ ” Kokichi sat up and turned around in one swift movement. “I don’t know what you think you’re entitled to, Saihara. _You’re_ the one that abandoned _me_ , and then decided you wanted me gone after all.”

Shuichi shook his head. “You’ve got that wrong. They said they weren’t going to ex—”

“Oh my god.” Kokichi laughed, dragging a hand through his hair. “Yep, okay. I’ll hear your excuses out one last time. I might miss it when I kill you.”

He felt tears pricking at his eyes. Was there any point in saying anything? Kokichi seemed to have already made his mind up about everything.

“Everything I did – everything,” he began, his voice breaking already. “I did to protect y—”

“You’re not even trying,” Kokichi interrupted for the third time, amused.

“Please stop laughing; p-please listen. I’m sorry, okay? I really am, none of this was what I inten—”

“Guess I can scratch that line off the bingo card,” Kokichi whistled and Shuichi finally felt a bottle cap somewhere within him pop open.

“Let me finish!” He cried. “I get why you hate me Kokichi, I honestly do; it’s nothing difficult to understand! But tell me this – when will _I_ finally earn the right to be upset too? Why do you get to act like you’re the only one that’s put their heart on the line? I had such little from the start and you _knew_ that. You even laughed about it! I risked everything – my friends, my career, my future, my _life_ – and one by one, I started losing everything. And now I’m supposed to be okay with losing _you_ too – somehow I deserve this all because everything I do turns out to be wrong and this is all my fault. How am I supposed to accept that??”

“Tell me one other thing too, Kokichi,” Shuichi continued, crawling closer to the blank-faced boy against the wall. “Do you think any of this was fun for me? I had to do what I did the night I kicked you out of my house – you were in _danger_. I thought they were going to hurt you—” Shuichi choked on his own erratic breathing. “But do you think it was any fun for me to leave someone I loved in a forest, in the dark, alone? Was it any fun for me to reunite with them two weeks later only to have them shot off my lap as they were holding my face? Do you think I’ll be able to forget any of this easily?”

“Look at this,” he continued once more, pulling down the collar of his shirt to make the electric ring that was still around his neck visible. He closed the distance between them again, til Kokichi could get a clear view of the raw skin where the collar had rubbed away at his neck. “Do you think _this_ was any fun?”

Kokichi seemed to be rendered speechless, his eyes dropping to the floor somewhere beyond Shuichi’s shoulder.

“What was I _supposed_ to do? Let them kill me?”

No answer came.

“So, to answer your question, Kokichi,” he said, exhausted from his own yelling. He backed off from the warlock, now aware how uncomfortably close he had gotten to him. “I think I’m entitled to enough of your mercy for me to have the chance to tell you that it hurts. That’s _all_.”

“I know how much I’ve hurt you with my secrets and shit, Kokichi, it was all a stupid idea and I wish I hadn’t done any of it and that I was smart enough to think of something else.” He said, doing up his top button again and moving to sit against the wall beside the warlock.

(God knows he needed support, even if it was from a wall.)

“But, _Jesus Christ_ , please don’t make me beg you to stop trampling all over me, as worthless as my feelings for you are now. It hurts too much,”

“It hurts so much that I’m powerless, and that everything I’ve done to protect you has only ended up hurting you and making you hate me… And that I’ve screwed up so badly that nobody will even believe that this isn’t what I wanted…” He’d mumbled the last part, feeling his breathing hasten and his heart begin to palpitate.

Shuichi was at a point where he could recognise the onset of a panic attack. He’d grown accustomed to it in his childhood, but it had been a while since his last one. Having been in custody, he’d had no access to his medication. There was no stopping it, so he was going to let it swallow him up once more, just like he had to as a child.

Alone then and alone now. Shuichi didn’t know why he had the hope it’d ever be any other way.

More bitter tears slid down his face.

“…Jeez,” Kokichi’s voice from beside him was quiet, but it still made the detective flinch sharply.

“Come on Shuichi, you’re panicking. Let me help you,”

Kokichi moved to put a gentle hand on Shuichi’s shoulder but stopped himself when he noticed the detective shrinking away. As slow and careful as Kokichi was being, Shuichi just wasn’t in much of a state to see someone who had tried to drown him – twice – reach out for him.

The warlock instead opted to hold his hand out for Shuichi to take on his own accord.

It took a moment, but he eventually put his trembling hand in Kokichi’s, and let him pull him into a hug.

The sensation was so familiar – the sorcerer’s warmth, the sound of his heartbeat, his scent – it was _cathartic_. Finally, _finally_ , relief welled up inside of him, beginning to numb the unbearable pain from a moment ago.

“…And I don’t _hate_ you,” Kokichi said, tightening his hold around Shuichi’s curled-up form. “I hate _myself_ , and it made me doubt you could really ever care for me. Your love isn’t worthless, it’s just… it’s overwhelming. And that’s not your fault. It’s mine. I ended up keeping secrets and treating you like shit because of that.” He let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Shuichi replied – quietly, but without hesitation. “Because I love you, Kokichi.”

Unexpectedly, there were a series of stifled giggles after a momentary silence from the smaller of the pair, and Shuichi sat up questioningly.

“Sorry, sorry. That was just the first time you’ve said that to me, it made me feel all giddy.”

“I… I’ve really never said that before?” Shuichi recalled now. Kokichi had said his first _I love you_ first, and that was the night he’d been kicked out of the house.

Shuichi’s tears returned heavier than before.

“Oh my god, Shuichi. Come on, you don’t have to cry so much. I could bottle all these tears and start a freshwater business.” He plucked at bits of Shuichi’s hair that were sticking to his face with tears.

“Call it _Water To Drown Your Boyfriend With_ ,” Shuichi quipped from nowhere, making the pair of them chuckle.

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m ever going to live that down.”

“People struggle to get away with a _lot_ less, so yeah, no, I don’t think so either.”

There was a moment of comfortable silence. Shuichi laid back into Kokichi’s embrace again, feeling it heal every inch of his shattered heart.

Kokichi was the one to break said silence some time later. Shuichi had his eyes closed against the other’s chest, so he couldn’t see it but he sure as hell could _hear_ the embarrassed smile in the warlock’s voice when he said, “Could… could you tell me again, please? That you love me.”

“I love you.” Shuichi said, once again without a second’s hesitation. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Kokichi laughed happily, a melodious sound that Shuichi could listen to all day. “Wait, what the hell? Your hair’s gone all heart-shaped. Did it get ruffled earlier or something?”

Shuichi reached up and felt his out-of-shape ahoge bent in a funny direction. It was definitely due to a lack of care considering the circumstances the last two weeks, but he opted to be playful about it. “No, it’s gone all heart-shaped because I’m so deeply in love with you.”

The sorcerer fell for it. “Wow,” he exclaimed genuinely, and Shuichi snorted.

“When I sense danger it also straightens up and slicks back like this,” he pulled it into a straight, pointy shape and held it at a low angle.

“It’s so that I’m streamlined for running away. It’s some kind of evolutionary thing that became redundant after a few stages and disappeared over time, but there’s still traces left in the genepool.”

Kokichi looked so sincerely interested in Shuichi’s babbling that he wondered how long he could get away with this. “Do you remember Kaede? I don’t know if you noticed but she has one too.”

It was fun – _these_ kinds of lies weren’t so bad, Shuichi decided.

“You were magical all along with that thing on your head,” Kokichi said, audibly wowed by Shuichi’s lies.

Shuichi went thoughtfully quiet at that, which made the smaller of the pair stiffen slightly – something Shuichi could feel.

“Sorry, maybe it’s too soon…” he mumbled.

“No, you’re fine.” Shuichi reached up to gently place his palm on Kokichi’s cheek. The bruises littered on his skin made the latter wince slightly at first, but he slowly leaned into the touch. “I was just wondering, since I didn’t get a chance to get an actual good look – what do my eyes even look like right now?”

“I didn’t lie back then, they look bad,” Kokichi answered promptly, and then slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, that was the truth serum!” Kokichi exclaimed, putting his arms back around Shuichi quickly afterwards as if the detective was going to reel away from him at that.

Instead, he laughed. “Well, that just won’t do. I need to look my prettiest for you.”

“Shuichi, I’m almost definitely going to die. What you look like on my final evening doesn’t matter.” Kokichi deadpanned, but he couldn’t help the blush that crept up onto his face.

“But really, I liked the natural colour of your eyes so much. They were kind of like this dulled greenish yellow, but up close and in the sunlight they looked golden,” he said, gesturing as he spoke.

“Though, to be fair,” Kokichi cupped his hands around Shuichi’s face and gently brought it up to his. “ _You’re_ still pretty. It’s true, I don’t like your eyes being bright red like mine – but you have these amazing butterfly-shaped eyelashes. And the cutest nose, and pretty pink lips…” Kokichi seemed to get distracted then.

“…Do you want to kiss me?” Shuichi asked straightforwardly after a moment of silence.

“Yes,” he answered, but made no move to close the remaining inch or so between their faces.

“…What are you waiting for?”

“I’m nervous.” He said honestly, and Shuichi had to laugh. Kokichi on truth serum was just some funny shit.

“Whenever you’re ready. We have all night.” Shuichi reassured him, and it only took a further minute or two for Kokichi to finally take the plunge and press his own _pretty pink lips_ to Shuichi’s.

It was short and sweet, but flooded Shuichi’s system with gratification.

“I was wondering one other thing,” Shuichi said a moment later. “About what you were telling Kyoko earlier – the sorcery gene. I can believe it’s in all of us, since I’d read before that practitioners and non-practitioners lived as equals and marriages between the two were commonplace before The Tragedy but I was just thinking… If it’s in all of us, do you reckon there’s any awakenings that happen by accident?”

Kokichi hummed. “Unlikely. I know it sounds simple, but the criteria is very difficult to meet in practice – first, you need someone who the gods have absolutely shat on non-stop for their entire lives so that their life force is weak enough. Then, they need to be in a situation with a very specific, unique stimulus that varies from person-to-person that will make their life force react to the stress in the situation with sorcery. For you, that stimulus was water, which is why the stress I placed on you was drowning… and for that Kamukura guy, it was medical procedures, which is why they performed dozens of needless surgeries on him. I still don’t understand how they figured it out – non-practitioners can’t assess someone’s life force for any of that kind of information like we can. They’re seriously something terrifying, huh?”

Shuichi hummed in response before Kokichi kept going. “Plus, even if you did get a situation like that – a lot of people would die struggling before their sorcery awakened. It’ll take a lot of strict control if you’re hellbent on awakening sorcery in one person without having them die. That’s why more or less all sorcerers throughout history were just born with it awakened, like me. With all that said though, you’re probably thinking there’s still the smallest of chances, right? Yeah, I’m guessing that’s why the Future Foundation preserved these cells from The Tragedy and put one in all of their buildings.”

“That… makes a lot of sense,” Shuichi commented. “I thought it was strange – the way Kyoko believed me right away when I was still in that lake, I mean. And the way she said it was unlikely that they were going to execute you. She probably had to consider the possibility that you were an ordinary person that had accidentally awakened,”

“Sometimes I forget you’re a detective until you talk like that,” Kokichi said, smiling against Shuichi’s face before he placed a small, quick kiss on his cheek.

“One _more_ thing,” Shuichi tested.

“Of course, my love. We have a lot of time.”

Shuichi couldn’t stop himself from beaming at that. Yes, they’re in prison, the collar around his neck was hurting like a bitch, and he was still reeling from the events of the day _but_ the intimacy just from a simple, hushed conversation in Kokichi’s arms in the middle of the night was still just so _warm_ and healing.

“…Shuichi?” Kokichi called out gently in the middle of the detective’s happy silence.

“…Actually, I don’t have anything to say. I just wasn’t ready for you to stop talking.”

“With a voice like mine, I don’t blame you.” He teased, his form shaking with quiet giggles.

“Yeah, I could really listen to you for the rest of my life.”

“Are you proposing to me?”

The pair of them laughed. Shuichi finally began to feel the weight of sleep on his eyelids.

“Gross. Not here, not yet… Soon…” He yawned.

“It’s a promise, then. I’ll seek you out in the next life, so you have plenty of time to find only the fattest of diamond rings.”

“Shhh, don’t say that. I won’t let them do anything to you.” Shuichi’s eyes fluttered shut.

“You’ve been doing a _great_ job of that so far,” Kokichi said playfully, earning a shove to the rib by the detective falling asleep in his arms. “It’s fine. Let’s just not think about it right now. Go to sleep~” He placed a kiss on the crown of Shuichi’s head.

“Let me watch you in one last night of restful sleep, while I still have the chance to hold you like this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter next, it's gonna be long and intense so this chapter served as a slow down to prepare for it. and also so the boys can fucking talk already jfc
> 
> it'd be so pog if we hit 300 kudos before i finish this up
> 
> as usual, thank you for readingg and keeping up with this, it's almost all overrr


	18. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for violence in this chapter (less graphic than canon events, if we use that as a reference)
> 
> decided to upload our final chapter a day early as a treat for you guys since i am celebrating this year-long journey with you all finally coming to an end hehe.
> 
> this chapter is long because it's about 2 or 3 chapters put into one - i wanted to do the entire ending sequence at once. it is 6.4k words, so please make sure you're comfortable and have quite some time before you begin. enjoyyy

Shuichi didn’t sleep for very long, or very deeply.

He’d stirred at the sound of the cell door’s latch clicking, followed by the sound of it swinging open. Still cradled in Kokichi’s lap (it seemed the smaller of them had held him like that all night), Shuichi rubbed the sleep from his eyes to be greeted by a warden placing a tray of food down in front of the pair.

He’d also removed the collar from Shuichi and dressed the wounds it had left on him as Kokichi made a start on his meal.

“You didn’t sleep?” Shuichi rasped, desperate to make any kind of distracting conversation with Kokichi during the uncomfortable process of having a stranger’s hands near his neck. He’d noticed that Kokichi was wide awake and still in the same position sitting up against the wall as he was waking up.

…Something about that gave him déjà vu, and he was overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia immediately afterwards.

“Nope! I’m going to be sleeping forever soon anyway. Decided to spend my last few hours on this planet looking at you.”

“Ugh,” Shuichi felt his morning migraine coming on as the warden finished up and left. “I hate this. I haven’t accepted it yet.”

“Oh, me neither.” Kokichi laughed. “That was a lie, of course. I have no intention to die.”

“Although,” he began to add, a beat of silence later. “I was _starting_ to accept it, but—”

The door beyond the cell window swung open, and in strode Kyoko and that warped assistant of hers, whom Shuichi seemed to hate more and more every time he saw her.

Irritated by the interruption, Kokichi let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Buenos dias, bitches. Welcome to our conversation. Would it hurt to knock?”

“Apologies,” Kyoko’s assistant said, mockery audibly dripping from the word in her mouth. “We supposed letting you know that you’ve been sentenced to death would be imperative enough to intrude on your conversation. Excuse me for the impolite assumption.”

She smirked when Shuichi shrank at that.

“Evil” really didn’t cut it. What had Shuichi seen in these people?

“There’s no need to give me that look, Detective Saihara. That’s just for Ouma. Your sentence is far more lenient – indefinite imprisonment.”

“As I was _saying_ ,” Kokichi protectively placed himself between Shuichi and the cell window the woman was standing at.

“I was starting to accept that I was probably going to be sentenced to death yesterday. But you know, ladies, and I’m not sure if you can relate – but when you hold your sleeping boyfriend in your arms at night, you kind of don’t want to die.”

He gestured towards the detective behind him. “Shuichi here still has thousands of nights left to sleep through, and it’d be a grave sin to let him go through them unheld. Did you enjoy watching us kissing, by the way?” He added, pointing towards a surveillance camera on the cell’s ceiling that Shuichi hadn’t even noticed.

“How romantic. It seems that’ll be the final one on your long list of sins, Kokichi Ouma.” She said, ignoring the last part – _thank god_.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. I still have a lifetime of sins left to commit. The list isn’t _nearly_ long enough, but I have a feeling it’ll start to look sizeable soon. Perhaps even actually worthy of a death sentence.”

“Is this some kind of threat?” She tossed her long ginger ponytail over her shoulder and stalked closer to the glass panel with narrowed eyes.

Kokichi got onto his feet and mirrored her movement. “You look so safe out there. I would’ve torched your face to melted wax by now if it weren’t for this cell.”

“That’s enough, both of you.” Kyoko spoke authoritatively from behind the desk outside the cell, where she seemed to have been setting up some kind of medical kit. “Please excuse my assistant. She has a smart mouth, but not as smart as yours…”

“I sincerely apologise for intruding on your conversation with Detective Saihara,” she continued. “But, as mentioned, you have indeed been sentenced to death for violation of the Hinata Law. Had it not been for that…” She paused. “Well, no matter. Executives have ordered that this should happen by 7 o’clock. I am happy to afford you this final hour to spend together. We can step out of the room until—”

“That won’t be necessary.” Kokichi interrupted. “I’m telling you, my final hour is going to be spent far from here, and far into the future.”

Kyoko sighed. “Tell me what it is exactly that you intend to do. You’ll be executed by lethal injection, so you won’t have the chance to leave your cell and perform any sorcery. Not co-operating will make your end just that much more painful. Don’t make it difficult for yourself, or for Saihara, who loves you. Face this gracefully.”

“You’re underestimating me,” Kokichi sing-songed. “It’s so sad. Even Shuichi underestimates me. He’s panicking back there right now, you know. Thinking I’m this weak, fragile thing that’s going to die struggling in an hour.”

Sure enough, Shuichi had completely seized with fear with the reality of the situation finally having dawned on him.

“Ma’am, if I may… Perhaps starting now would be best, to ensure death by 7 o’clock, as discussed with the executives?”

Kyoko looked thoughtful for one moment. She glanced at Shuichi, seemingly penitent, before she turned back towards her assistant.

“…Fine. Our hands are tied. Fetch the executioner.”

“W-Wait,” Shuichi choked out, his entire frame trembling. If she heard him, she ignored it because the orange-haired woman proceeded to disappear behind the door without so much of a glance over her shoulder. “Kokichi, wait, please, tell them you surrender… I need more time, I need—”

“You’ll _have_ time. Calm down.” The sorcerer said firmly. “You’ll have more than one hour, that’s for sure. Hey, Kirigiri,” he sauntered closer towards the window, placing his palms against the glass.

“Shuichi’s crying, and I really hate to see it. And I’m still pretty pissed off about being brought here in the first place. Someone’s going to have to pay for this, you know? Me and my beloved have made up, but I’m still itching to kill someone. Can you blame me?”

Kyoko chose to ignore him. He continued to taunt her, but earned no reaction until her assistant returned with two wardens and a man in a lab coat in tow.

One warden guarded the unlocked cell door as the other came in to pull a feebly resisting Shuichi out of the cell, all while the executioner introduced himself to Kokichi and filled a syringe with some kind of clear fluid.

“This doctor used to carry out executions during The Tragedy,” Kyoko’s assistant commented, inspecting her nails as Shuichi was forced to sit beside her.

“The chances he has blood belonging to the Oumas on his hands already are high. And he’s really good at dealing with resistance,” she piled more and more onto the detective at seemingly calculated intervals, appearing to revel in how Shuichi’s expression became increasingly crushed.

_This is so twisted,_ Shuichi thought to himself as she gleefully pointed out how Kokichi had already backed himself into the corner of the cell as the doctor stepped in and began to approach him, syringe in hand.

“You can execute me if you catch me,” Kokichi said, a typical cheeky line from him – yet said completely seriously.

The executioner’s shadow was casted over Kokichi’s tiny frame, and the aforementioned position Kokichi had put himself in didn’t seem to put him in any particular advantage. Shuichi’s heart was sinking fast, and just as he had begun to accept that the latter had been barking without any bite and that it was over for him, he slipped under the executioner’s arm – just like that.

Shuichi had to rub his eyes and squint at what was unfolding before him to make sure it wasn’t just his imagination. Kokichi’s escape plan was indeed a game of tag – but he was _winning_.

From corner to corner, every time the executioner lunged at him with increasing frustration, he just slipped through some kind of opening in his stance.

It took him a few seconds, but Shuichi noticed one other thing as the pair shuffled across the room several times over – the executioner was getting progressively tired, naturally, but Kokichi seemed to be building up momentum and getting faster each time. Shuichi had figured it was probably his imagination until the warlock was bouncing off the walls so fast that he began to leave afterimages.

“Observe, Kirigiri. A flaw with these cells of yours,” Kokichi’s voice resounded throughout the room with the quality of an echo.

Shuichi couldn’t see him anymore. “It stops me from turning aether into magical energy. It doesn’t stop me from using aether to enhance existing energy. Namely, kinetic energy… or heat.”

As those words left his mouth, the executioner seemed to slow down.

He staggered towards the centre of the cell, unsure of which direction to even turn now that Kokichi was just a purple blur between the cell’s walls.

“Mrs Kirigiri… the temperature…” he panted, exhausted. His glasses were crooked on his face, his lab coat damp with sweat slipping from his shoulders. The syringe shattered against the floor, leaking its lethal contents, as he collapsed and began to convulse.

Kokichi appeared again, now directly in front of the cell door.

He leisurely walked towards it, twisted the knob, swung it open, stepped out and closed the door behind him.

For a minute, Shuichi was unsure if time was still moving. Everyone – Shuichi included – seemed to just be gaping at the now-free warlock, until the reality of the executioner seizing in the cell behind Kokichi finally struck Kyoko.

“You three, get backup, now—”

“ _Not_ so fast!”

The two wardens that had accompanied the executioner were cut off by Kyoko’s assistant’s body being hurled at the door, her hair coming loose from her ponytail and falling into the blood at her forehead. She fell unconscious immediately. If Shuichi had blinked, he could’ve missed it.

To his surprise, it was Shuichi that Kokichi approached next. One second he was across the room, and the next he was inches from his face.

“I’m sorry, sunshine. I really don’t want you to have to see this. Consider this my very last betrayal – I promise.”

Shuichi yelped when the electricity crackling between Kokichi’s palms in front of him evolved into a bright blue dazzling flash of light that sent Shuichi to the ground, his vision white.

Blinded, he couldn’t _see_ anything happening, but he certainly _heard_ anguished screaming coming from the two wardens soon afterwards, which stopped _terrifyingly_ quickly.

There was then some silence, and then footsteps. He could distinguish between Kokichi’s and Kyoko’s – one set was confident and firm, and the other was hesitant.

An urgent shuffle followed – Shuichi figured the pair were engaged in a physical struggle, which was only confirmed when there was some kind of sickening crunching sound and then screaming – Kyoko’s screaming.

“Relax, I’m only breaking your arm. This hurts a lot less than electric collars and multiple organ failure by lethal injection, I assure you.”

There was another horrible sound and Kyoko’s screaming intensified before dying down into painful breathing.

“Th… This can’t be possible,” she said, her voice strained.

“You totally played yourself by making these rooms soundproof, by the way. A group of six assistants just walked by outside. That’s far too many for me to take on by myself, regardless of my abilities. Good thing they didn’t hear you, huh? Anyway, here’s what I want you to do, Mrs Kirigiri,”

Kokichi’s tone of voice was unrecognisable. It scared him, so Shuichi covered his ears. The sound still seeped through like sand between one’s fingers, muffled yet still too clear.

“Destroy every bit of information you have on me and Saihara from the Future Foundation systems and all of your networks. Everywhere. Emails and all. Delete everything you have.”

Shuichi could hear Kyoko swallow a ragged breath. “Because of the top secret nature of yourself and this case, we don’t have any information about you on our computers, nor did we discuss anything via telephone… All communication was done in person at meeti—ah!”

“Do you expect me to believe that? Listen. I’ve used my sorcery to map every floor of this hideous building already, with every person of interest marked on it. Perched at the very top of this building… Is Mr Makoto Naegi. I have as much patience and mercy as Future Foundation executives do, so you only get one more chance to do as I say before I bring him down here so the pair of you can experience real pain together.”

A shaky breath. “I’m… telling the truth…”

“Swear on your husband’s life?”

“I swear…”

“Does anyone outside of this building know about us?”

Kyoko audibly gulped. “N-Not yet… I have a meeting with executives from the branch in the next city this afternoon—”

“Not anymore~”

Shuichi’s vision returned then, and he wasn’t sure if he was glad or not. The first thing he saw was Kyoko’s arm twisted unnaturally in Kokichi’s grip, his furiously glowing red eyes almost boring holes into the woman.

She passed out after a moment, and he discarded her limp body to the side.

Kokichi turned to him next, and Shuichi almost flinched.

“Oh, is your sight back? Sorry you had to see that. Everyone here will be fine though; when they eventually get some treatment, I guess. Nothing can cure the mindwipe I casted on them though,” he grinned, stepping towards Shuichi and holding a hand out.

The detective took it, pulling himself onto his feet.

“…Are you frightened?” Kokichi asked after a beat of silence which he’d spent closely inspecting the detective’s face.

“Um… Obviously.”

“Your hair is doing the thing.” Kokichi said, gesturing towards the top of his own head.

Shuichi reached up and sure enough… His ahoge had slipped into a sharp and angled shape. He’d been joking when he said his hair reflected his emotions, but he was starting to wonder if it was really a coincidence now.

“Well, you won’t have to worry anymore soon! Like, ever again.” Kokichi tiptoed and wrapped his arms around Shuichi’s shoulders. The latter melted into the embrace.

“We’re a few dozen floors underground right now. We need to zoom to the ground floor and get through the exit,” the warlock said into Shuichi’s ear, and an image began to make itself clear in the foreground of Shuichi’s vision.

It was a map. The map Kokichi had mentioned to Kyoko was being projected onto Shuichi’s retinas.

“Those golden spots moving about really fast are staff being sent by whoever’s watching the surveillance cameras. They’re blocking off the stairs and the elevator wasn’t going to be viable from the beginning, so—hup!”

Shuichi let out a squeak he would never admit escaped his mouth when Kokichi released the hug and swept him off the ground in one fluid movement, before charging straight for the ceiling.

“We’re setting this building on fire, by the way. After I cast a mass-mindwipe, that is. And it’s likely I’m gonna need your help. They only fed us so much,”

“W-What? _What?_ ” Completely distracted by trying to shield himself from destroyed-ceiling debris as Kokichi launched the pair of them through several floors in one go, Shuichi could barely process what Kokichi was asking him to do. Cast a _spell_? And a _violent_ one?

He’d accepted that he _had_ practicing ability now, but that didn’t mean he knew a thing about how to actually go about using said ability.

“It’ll be a controlled spell, where the flames are smokeless and won’t torch anyone. I just need to make sure every bit of paperwork everywhere gets incinerated. I promise I won’t turn you into a murderer,” Kokichi burst through the next ceiling, and then the next.

“After all, I need to make sure nobody disturbs us when we elope!”

He grinned, paying no mind to the scientists minding their own business a floor above them he’d ended up sending to the ground as he continued to ascend from floor to floor.

“Almost there…”

Kokichi burst through one more ceiling spectacularly and landed on his feet, putting Shuichi down all too soon. Dizzy, he staggered backwards, but caught hold of the jumpsuit Kokichi was made to wear upon arrest for support.

And that’s when Shuichi noticed they were surrounded.

“This is far enough,” Came a voice.

Ahead of them, one man clad in a suit – not that much taller than Kokichi, Shuichi mused momentarily – appeared to block off what Shuichi belatedly recognised as the front door with armed staff all around him.

“You’re tired, and I know the detective doesn’t know how to cast spells.”

He was cloaked in the shadow casted by the pale white natural light filtering through large glass windows behind him, but Shuichi recognised him by voice.

Makoto Naegi.

“Shuichi, listen closely. I’m spent. I need you to take over from here,”

Only then did any sign of exertion show up on the smaller of the two. He was beginning to sweat, his breathing becoming heavier.

“The mindwipe knocks everyone out as a side effect anyway, so we don’t need to spend any more energy on fighting. This building is just too goddamn tall for me to do anything by myself. I need you to lend me your strength.”

“I-I can’t… I can’t! I don’t know how, I d—”

“You’ll figure it out!” Kokichi bent at the knees, wrapped his arms around Shuichi’s legs and tossed him over his shoulder.

For a moment, Shuichi was impressed that the smaller of them had been able to keep his balance carrying him like that, before the panic set in.

“Kokichi! What are you _doing_?!”

“What does it look like?” He replied gleefully. “I’m throwing you at them!”

“Kokichi, _don’t_ —!”

…He actually did it.

He _actually_ launched Shuichi like a fucking javelin directly at Makoto Naegi.

Good grief. Whatever happened to blinding him being Kokichi’s final betrayal? This is it. He’s never trusting Kokichi with a single thing ever again.

…At least, that’s what he _had_ decided with all the certainty in the world at that moment – yet, somehow, Shuichi stopped himself in midair, several feet off the ground and inches away from Makoto.

“Knew you had it in you,” he heard Kokichi’s familiar voice say behind him. “You underestimate _everybody_ , most of all yourself.”

“Mass mindwipe, was it?” Shuichi found himself saying in response, feeling a surge of energy from within him.

Kokichi beamed. “And arson.”

“Roger that.”

“Arrest them.”

Countless Future Foundation officers began to close in at Makoto’s command, but it took little effort to locate and differentiate the life force of every single person in that building, and even less effort to wipe the information for the last few weeks from said life force.

Everyone around the pair of sorcerers collapsed simultaneously.

Shuichi glanced over his shoulder towards Kokichi, who was prying an unconscious warden’s grip off of his jumpsuit.

“Man, this guy lunged at me faster than any animal I’d seen during my time living in the wild,” he commented.

“Was that seriously it?” Shuichi said, pleasantly surprised.

“Yeah, that was it.” Kokichi replied, dusting his clothes off. “Pretty cool, huh?”

Shuichi drifted towards the massive gaping hole in the floor that Kokichi had created on his way up. Had Shuichi not ascended to the ground floor from that very pit, he would’ve been convinced it was bottomless. No matter how much he squinted into the darkness, he couldn’t see the five unconscious bodies the pair of them had left there at the very bottom.

“Gonna set fire to that floor from here,” Shuichi pointed, and Kokichi nodded.

“Yeah. Let’s hurry and make a break for it; the fire is going to spread fast, and we need to make ourselves scarce before any rescue services get here.”

“Got it.”

“You’re strong,” Kokichi said as Shuichi ignited a small flame at the bottom of the pit – as small as he could while ensuring it wasn’t so small as to get snuffed out, to buy enough time to get as far away as possible before locals noticed a burning building.

“Your sorcery, I mean. This was your first time using it, but your range and precision makes you look like a veteran. I missed a mindwipe spell at point-blank range, you know,” he chuckled. “And that was what got us all into this mess. And the amount of control it takes to ignite a flame that small… Yeah, you’re strong. So I trust you to carry me now.”

“H-Huh?”

Kokichi climbed onto Shuichi’s back without waiting for the latter to even react. An objection died on his tongue when he felt the smaller sorcerer’s muscles lax against the support of Shuichi’s body. Feeling his own exhaustion catch up to him, he figured the other must have been completely worn out by his earlier performance too.

He’ll carry Kokichi, he supposed.

“Alright. Let’s go, horsey.” Kokichi said playfully, nudging Shuichi in the side with his knee and pointing towards the exit.

“Is this… really it?” Shuichi asked himself aloud as he stepped over splayed limbs.

“This is really it,” Kokichi replied, audibly tired but happy. “I made some promises to you and I’m a man of my word, you know.”

“…That sounds like a lie.”

“Oh yeah, absolutely.” Kokichi laughed. “Promises don’t mean _that_ much to me on their own – it depends on who I’m talking to. The truth is far simpler than that. I just love you, and didn’t want to separate from you so soon.”

Kokichi’s voice was so close and so gentle as he spoke that it made Shuichi shudder as the doors slid open and Shuichi stepped out – out onto the large field surrounding the building, under the morning sun in a pale blue sky with birds on the horizon – _outside, alive and with Kokichi_.

It would appear there was no time to celebrate, though, as Shuichi caught movement in his peripheral vision and quickly became defensive, tightening his hold on Kokichi.

From a familiar minivan, out came four familiar faces.

Maki, Kaito, Rantaro and Kaede.

Shuichi heard Kokichi groan. “Shuichi, please. Make quick work of these clowns.”

“What are you two doing out here?” Kaede squeaked, approaching the pair of them in an awkward half-jog that the other three matched in their attempts to keep up with her.

“Kaede, I’m going to have to ask that you don’t come any closer.” Shuichi spoke with such uncharacteristic authority in his voice that a wide-eyed Kaede immediately stopped in her tracks.

“You all still mean so much to me so I don’t want to have to hurt any of you, but I have no intention of handing Kokichi over so easily again. We’re leaving. If you get in our way, I’ll remove you – by all means necessary.”

“Idiot.” Maki said candidly. “We’re here to _help_ you.”

“I thought they were supposed to be executing you in like, 10 minutes!” Kaito exclaimed, pointing a finger at Kokichi. His volume earned him a kick in the shin from Maki.

“We escaped.” Shuichi propped Kokichi’s slipping frame back up impatiently. He wanted to _leave_.

“Evidently,” Rantaro commented, as oblivious as the others to Shuichi’s exasperation. “That’s convenient though. We don’t have to bust them out of prison ourselves.”

“Convenient, yes, but I was sort of looking forward to the action.” That line earned Kaito another kick to the shin, which made him cry out this time.

“Don’t be stupid. I didn’t want to fight. This is ideal.” Maki sighed with some level of relief and releasing the hair she’d been tugging at.

“Now if you’ll excuse us,” Kokichi spoke, irritation in his voice too. “My beloved and I will be on our way now. We didn’t need your help,” he stuck his tongue out at Rantaro and Kaito in particular.

Conscious of the fact that the building would soon be swallowed up in flames and attract attention, Shuichi began to make his way around the back of the building. There would be vehicles he could hijack in the car park there…

“Wait. What’s your plan now?” Maki called before Shuichi had a chance to even take a fourth step in the car park’s direction. “Don’t tell me it’s grand theft auto.”

“Precisely.” Shuichi said curtly. “We need to get away from this area as fast as possible.”

“Agreed. Which is why you should come with us.” Maki continued.

“Yeah, yeah!” Kaede piped up in her usual bubbly manner. “Miu and a few others have set up a little boat for you to leave the country on.”

“Leave the country?” Kokichi and Shuichi repeated in unison.

“That’s ideal,” Kokichi said after a beat of silence, sounding serious for the first time in a while. “Shuichi, let’s go with them.”

“H-Hang on a second…”

Shuichi hesitated. He thought he’d come to terms with the fact that everything had changed and that he was going to have to uproot his life and start anew elsewhere, but this suddenly…? And so far away?

“Why the reluctance? You have nothing to return to here. Leaving is the best option… Mentally, I mean.” Maki began to fiddle with the hem of her sweater as she spoke.

“I understand you probably took precautions to make sure the Future Foundation won’t continue to hunt you down, so in a practical sense, you could probably stay here safely.” She continued. “But you also _can’t_ do that… You can’t come back to work next Monday with the woman that pointed a crossbow at your boyfriend’s face right in front of you and expect to heal from this entire experience. You can’t carry on working for Kyoko’s company after everything that’s happened. That’s no escape… That’s moving from one cell to another.”

“The purpose you gave yourself – serving the Future Foundation so loyally because you believed it was the one thing that got you out of your situation as a child – it’s not there anymore. You need to start over.” Maki’s gaze was as sharp as ever, but Shuichi recognised the softness and sincerity in her eyes.

They had been such close friends, after all. All five of them.

“She’s right.” Kokichi said gently behind him, giving him a squeeze. “But that’s not all, Shuichi… I-I don’t want to stay here either. So please consider it.”

…Shuichi could feel it, now that he was a sorcerer and all. The weight of Kokichi’s own despair. The ground they walked on is the same ground the family he never got to know died on.

The pair of them had as much healing to do as each other.

Shuichi heard something collapse inside the building behind him. The fire was going to start making itself visible soon.

“…Yeah. We’ll go with you.”

* * *

The ride to the docks was… bumpy.

Having worked at that company for as long as he had, he could recognise the minivan as one of their eight-seaters immediately. So he had no reason to worry until he had peered inside before Rantaro got the door for him.

The seats at the back were taken up by shopping bags stuffed with tinned food, various snacks, packs of water, clothes, blankets, and what looked like some of Shuichi’s belongings that had been confiscated during the raid.

This meant capacity was reduced to five, and since Shuichi had put Kokichi down from his back first whilst the others claimed their seats, he found himself without anywhere to sit.

Again, Shuichi figured this was no cause for immediate concern. Naturally, in a situation like this, Shuichi could just sit in Kokichi’s lap.

“Nope,” Kokichi said, crossing his legs before Shuichi even had a chance to pitch the idea. “You’re way too big. You’ll crush me.”

The _betrayal_.

“Do we have time to be playing musical chairs?” Maki called from the other side of the car as the pair squabbled over how the seating arrangement would work.

“What’s your suggestion, then?” Shuichi snapped back.

“Good God, _I’ll_ sit in Maki Roll’s lap. Shuichi, you can take my seat.” Kaito boomed in a Kaito-typical volume.

Everyone watched as Kaito scrambled onto an _extremely_ displeased Maki, speechless. They stayed like that for quite some time as Kaito tried to compensate for his height by craning his neck against the roof of the car.

Shuichi would have refused to get in with Kaito’s lanky limbs sprawled out like that, invading the little space he would have between the pair of them and Kokichi who insisted on a window seat, had it not been for another crashing sound coming from the building behind him.

He sighed and got in, immediately taking Kaito’s knee to his face when Rantaro began driving – the only other person comfortable except for Kaede, who was in shotgun.

He was legitimately about to cry, until he felt Kokichi rest his head against Shuichi’s shoulder.

“…Is that what you wanted all along?” Shuichi said, Kaito’s knee still in his face.

“Yeah.” Kokichi snuggled closer to the crook of Shuichi’s neck.

Shuichi sighed, but there was no hiding the fond smile on his face.

Fine. He’ll eat Kaito knee this one time.

The drive wasn’t awfully long, and before Shuichi reached his limit with Kaito’s limbs, they had reached their destination at the docks.

“There’s a number of people out here, boarding ships and stuff,” Rantaro said as he began to park, wariness in his voice. “We salvaged some of your stuff, Shuichi, and bought you new clothes too. It’d serve you both well to slap a coat on over your jumpsuits and put the hood up to hide your eyes, because you look like obvious prison runaways right now.”

Shuichi heeded Rantaro’s advice, reaching behind him to pull two long coats out of a shopping bag. He gave one to Kokichi, and one by one, the crew began to exit the vehicle (with a level of difficulty in the back that Shuichi does not want to talk about).

Several other familiar faces began to saunter towards the car, shielding the pair of warlocks from the view of passerbys. Kirumi had wordlessly slipped a large basket into Shuichi’s hands at some point, which he later noted was filled with fresh fruit and vegetables that she probably intended to have the pair eat sooner rather than later, before their diets consisted of only tinned food for some time.

Before he could thank her, Angie grabbed Shuichi and an alarmed Kokichi by the wrists and pulled them towards the edge of the dock.

“Look, look,” she pointed, ushering them towards a modestly-sized boat. Gonta was in the middle of carefully carrying the contents of the minivan onto said boat.

“Nobody’s figured out where Angie got this from yet.” Ryoma shrugged, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke. “She keeps saying that it’s _Atua’s blessing to the two innocents that need to escape the government’s oppression_.”

“Atua’s judgment is never wrong,” Angie added. “Unlike ours.”

“Alright, we have no time to speak in riddles.” Maki interrupted. “What Angie said just now was an apology. From all of us. Shuichi, we’ve been friends and co-workers ever since some of us were teenagers and… we betrayed you. This is all an apology, and an attempt at repentance.”  
  


_Maki…_

“But we don’t have time for the rest of our apologies,” she continued urgently. “We’re probably going to be called in for questioning about the burning building first, and we need to go and cover your asses without looking suspicious. We’re sending you off with a map, compass, clothes and food on top of what was in the car. Gonta and I piled on as much as we could of your confiscated belongings.”

Gonta had stopped moving between the minivan and boat with hands full of supplies at some point and joined the crowd of people around Shuichi and Kokichi – whom the detective was holding firmly to make sure there were no last minute separations.

“I’ve marked on the map another detective agency in a city across the ocean that is expecting the pair of you and will take you in.” Tsumugi added. “They’re independent of the Future Foundation. I figured you’d need a job pretty quick to help you get back on your feet after this. It’ll take some time to get there on a boat this size – but once you do, you’re set. There’s a fleet of ships and boats leaving soon. You can blend in easily with them if you leave now.”

“This is goodbye, Saihara. Hopefully, we’ll never see you again.” Rantaro said, offering his hand as Shuichi boarded after Kokichi.

“Wait,” Kokichi said as the two detectives released their handshake, unexpectedly reaching out and grabbing Rantaro’s wrist. “You lot come closer too. I’ll give you all truth serum resistance,”

_That’s a good idea,_ Shuichi thought to himself as Kokichi imbued each of his former co-workers’ life force with a new type of defense. It seemed unlikely whichever investigation team looked into the Future Foundation’s destroyed building would use truth serum since the fire and mindwipe spells would have erased any evidence of the event being anything but an accident, but they couldn’t be too cautious.

Looking at Kokichi from beside him anyway, Shuichi could tell this was more than just saving their skin to him. He could have – no, he _would have_ – simply just mindwiped if that was his sole interest. Instead, he was choosing to trust them, and protecting their will and freedom from people who may want to take it away from them.

Will, individual agency, freedom… things Shuichi had learnt Kokichi treasures above all else.

Kokichi was saying _thank you_.

With that, Maki sliced the ropes securing the boat to the docks.

“Y-You assholes b-better take care of yourselves nowww!” Miu wailed once they had began to depart, tears, snot and drool all leaking down her face as she fell to her knees.

Maki grappled her back up by the elbow before dragging her off, and seeming to signal to the others that it was time to go. Shuichi could read _there’s no time to see them off all the way_ on her lips before she had turned around fully, and one by one, Shuichi lost sight of his co-workers.

Once he’d lost sight of Kaede’s tall blonde ahoge peeking out of the crowd last of all, he finally felt exhaustion overcome him, and his knees gave way. He sunk to the deck floor and laid face up.

There was warm sunbeams and a gentle breeze on what was exposed of his skin, the sight of a largely clear sky with the exception of a few light clouds, the sound of water lapsing against the hull beneath him and the horns of nearby departing ships, Kokichi’s comforting presence beside him and… the widest smile on his face.

“Kokichi?”

“Yeah?”

His answer was so quick, so close by, so clear to his ears… Somehow, his grin got wider, wider still until his eyes began to water.

“Pfft—! Shuichi, you should see the look on your face,” Kokichi laughed as he turned from looking out at the ocean to his boyfriend on the floor. “I understand though; I’m happy, too. We’re _free_ ,” he’d whispered the last part, as though he was excited enough to yell but had come full circle.

“I think we should hold onto our sorcery until we spot the coast in case things go wrong at sea, but when I’m purple-eyed, let’s go _everywhere_ together, okay?” He chattered excitedly. “Amusement parks, gardens, tourist spots, museums, aquariums, galleries, shopping centres, flower fiel—”

He stopped suddenly, his eyebrows creasing and his gaze averting to the ground. Shuichi immediately moved to put his hand over Kokichi’s.

“It’ll take some healing, but we’ll enjoy flower fields, forests and lakes again eventually too. I’ll show you everything, just the way you wanted but couldn’t ask for up until now.” Shuichi said reassuringly, pulling Kokichi onto his lap.

“I want to go everywhere with you, and see the biggest, unrestrained smile on your face,” he paused only to press a kiss to Kokichi’s lips, “One without a hint of pain from your aching stomach.”

Kokichi giggled. “It won’t take long. I can’t seem to stop smiling when I’m around you, even when I’m so hungry I could pass out.” There was a thoughtful pause before Kokichi spoke again. “You know, erasing your sorcery feels like such a waste. I mean, we’re definitely going to do it. We have to. It’s a reasonable sacrifice for the future we want. But,”

Kokichi’s face reddened slightly, and he twisted a finger through a longer section of his hair. “I don’t think you understand this – seeing a sorcerer cast a spell on everybody inside a tall ass building simultaneously is to us what seeing a hunk at the beach is to ordinary people. It’s hot.”

Shuichi groaned. “So you’re telling me I finally got myself an attractive trait, but I’m only allowed to have it for about 48 hours?”

Kokichi laughed – genuine, full, whole-hearted laughter. “Shuichi, I love you so much.” He said, his voice shaking with giggles.

“Because I’m a hot magical hunk, right?”

“ _No_ , oh my god,” he laughed harder. “I shouldn’t have flattered you. Forget about it! Go back to being my cute, unassuming little Shuichi Saihara,” he said, holding his stomach.

“I love you too, Kokichi,” Shuichi said before the conversation had a chance to shift.

“I know!” Kokichi replied happily. “I’m going to accept it all now – all your love, I mean. And I’m going to listen closely to you, and speak clearly about how I feel too. Because opening myself up like this will bring us closer and stop all that stuff from earlier happening again, right? I’m learning Shuichi, just you wait – I’m going to be such a good boyfriend from now that you’ll hardly recognise me.”

“Maybe don’t change _that_ much,” Shuichi said gently, pressing his forehead against Kokichi’s. “And don’t try to do everything all at once – we have a whole lifetime, okay? We’ll do it all bit by bit,”

“Mhm,” Kokichi hummed quietly, his eyes fixating on something beyond Shuichi’s shoulder.

He followed Kokichi’s gaze to find the view of Snowcrest’s coastline disappearing over the horizon. “This is really the end of that life, huh?” He said after a reflective silence.

“Yup,” Kokichi replied, placing his chin on Shuichi’s shoulder.

“It’s the end.”

\- ❤ -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading. much loveeee. we did hit 300 kudos before this chapter went up, idk how close i was to seeing it change live but i saw it go from 299 to 300 and i was really really really happy so thank you everyone. i'm happy i managed to gather such a loveable audience, and i hope i'll get to see some of you guys again when i get my next pieces up, whenever that may be.
> 
> probably not very soon because i want to take a break! gonna binge an anime series or two, but i have an idea for another saiou that i intend to share to explore sad endings instead hehe since this one had a happy ending. it won't be NEARLY as long as this though - most likely a two-shot. this length happened because i wanted to prove to myself that i can commit and write something long if i tried, and i pulled it off and i'm very happy about that bc it was a challenge for me but idk how often i'll write things of this length
> 
> i'll leave you with a few fun facts:  
> 1) this fic's very first draft was 8k words, meaning it grew in size by a little more than 8 times itself  
> 2) the kokichi pov chapter where shuichi is having a nightmare and kokichi has to drag him out of a tank of "water" was foreshadowing the relevance of water and drowning to shuichi. it's more obvious now with chapter names and now that we're past all the plot twists and mysteries  
> 3) i had hajime and shuichi parallel each other in a lot of significant ways. when kokichi's being questioned and starts talking about how that "poor boy placed all his trust in the government" or something to that effect, you were supposed to be confused momentarily as to who he's talking about
> 
> that's all. thank you again ❤


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